Matrix doesn't do way more. The client features you mention are also widespread in XMPP world, and some clients even do more (look at Movim for instance).
Where matrix does do more is on the protocol level, because it objectively absurdly complex and unnecessarily so. Matrix stands to offer distributed rooms as the one differentiating feature over XMPP. The complexity price to pay for that is substantial. All along, XMPP had fMUCs and distributed servers, because the complexity of clustering could be absorbed by the runtime better, for those who cared/needed it (as proven by the overwhelming success of WhatsApp, a fork of ejabberd, running on top of the Erlang platform)
Where matrix does do more is on the protocol level, because it objectively absurdly complex and unnecessarily so. Matrix stands to offer distributed rooms as the one differentiating feature over XMPP. The complexity price to pay for that is substantial. All along, XMPP had fMUCs and distributed servers, because the complexity of clustering could be absorbed by the runtime better, for those who cared/needed it (as proven by the overwhelming success of WhatsApp, a fork of ejabberd, running on top of the Erlang platform)