Honestly, that's exactly what I've been thinking for awhile now.
I've personally felt that AAA games cost so much and take so long to develop that the majority are concerned about taking risks, trying something new, innovative, creative, etc. Because any wrong move can mean they risk failure, or even closure. So, they blend things that have been successful, or give a safe result. Which, unfortunately is enough for some players, whereas older players are the ones that call it out.
Much like it's been talked about already, AA and indies continue to take that torch of creativity and innovation. However, I'd argue that nowadays, we continue to see a ton of recycled ideas even in the realm of indie and AA. Like, survivor and resourcing games. I talked about it in another thread, but I thought that overflow was behind us, but no, we're definitely seeing more of those still. But in the end we DO see the most creativity and innovation there. Especially more so than AAA.
I definitely agree that even in the PS360 era we saw a lot more creativity and innovation from AAA devs. But it felt like it just got worse and worse. That period everyone wanted to do a MOBA game, then they tried to do BRs, and then resourcing/building/survival games. It all felt oversaturated IMO. Gaming fads have always existed, sure. But it just felt even more excessive IMO.