Well, again, I get the feeling that you're perhaps unknowingly defining "innovation" to mean "improving the things I like".
For one, I do think that these larger phones bring about new use cases that leave room for innovation. There is much more you can do with a large phone, such as having more immersive games & apps, make a phone viable for note taking and media consumption, use multiple apps at the same time (if you are so inclined), and all sorts of other new things that would be finnicky at best on smaller phones. Not that those are all self-evidently good things, but at least they seem to be innovative.
Whereas a longer battery life doesn't get you anything new. It means you can do the same things, but now you can do the same things for two days instead of one. That's a good thing, sure, but it's not innovative.
As a side note, bigger screened phones really do tend to have much longer battery life. These two things aren't opposed, they seem to go hand in hand.
For one, I do think that these larger phones bring about new use cases that leave room for innovation. There is much more you can do with a large phone, such as having more immersive games & apps, make a phone viable for note taking and media consumption, use multiple apps at the same time (if you are so inclined), and all sorts of other new things that would be finnicky at best on smaller phones. Not that those are all self-evidently good things, but at least they seem to be innovative.
Whereas a longer battery life doesn't get you anything new. It means you can do the same things, but now you can do the same things for two days instead of one. That's a good thing, sure, but it's not innovative.
As a side note, bigger screened phones really do tend to have much longer battery life. These two things aren't opposed, they seem to go hand in hand.