Well, one of the novelties of the Phillips screwdriver is its ability cam out of the screw head if it encounters too much resistance.

While frustrating to many who use it, it does prevent the all too easy case of sheering off the screw head because the screw met resistance (something I've done a few times with hexagonal heads and flat screwdrivers).

Lego - completely novel for its time. Just because it's not novel now, doesn't mean it wasn't novel when it was invented.