It's not actually a straightforward idea. It's just good design. No project manager will ask for it (just as no one asked for multiple cursors until sublime came along and won lots of hearts with it). There's plenty of space for such ideas which will all feel stunning. But, surprising they were not made before, neah...
I think this is a great example of where an individual can really innovate on their own, but they do need to have a good mix of experience with developing on a particular platform as well as a good sense for UX.
Working in a larger company, you tend to have each of those tasks (implementing vs designing) split out into multiple roles, making it very difficult to know what's possible to innovate, plus experience levels often differ, so newer designers may not know the limitations on a platform, so may over-design, and developers may not have experience to implement certain things, so they may limit the end result as well.
