I agree that Tiger is a big step forward, but I strongly suspect that has a lot to do with competitive pressure due to C#. Actually many of the new features are also present in C#, in one form or another.
The many new features in J2SE 5 reflect the effect of both of these processes. Take metadata (annotations) for example. Metadata echoes aspects of a larger trend in programming in which the programmer declares an action, but does not provide all of the code. Thus, it is (in part) a response to a refinement/improvement in programming.
But are those features really a new thing in the industry? Are they really innovative?
Now consider the new Concurrency API. It does not represent an innovation, because things like semaphores, latches, and locks have been around a long time. It does, however, reflect the fact that Java is being used a bit differently than was anticipated when its original threading model was devised.
In fact the API isn't new either - it has been around as a non-official library since years, as far as I know. It took Sun quite some time to incorporate it into Java.
As an aside, the longer I'm working with Java, the more I think it really would help to open source it. There are so many feature requests/bug reports in the bug database for which the fix would be trivial, but for some reason Sun doesn't take the time to tackle them...