I agree. A "huge" update doesn't necessarily mean a completely new way of doing things. Windows 8 might look completely different with their touch UI for touch devices, but who cares when the rest for desktops, which is still basically Windows 7 as far as we know at this point, is still the same and hasn't changed much.
I don't want to see a sudden complete overhaul of OS X where everything is different. Look at these boards. Everyone is already freaking out because Missing Control is a new kind of Exposé. Not that big of a change, as far as "complete overhauls" go, but still big enough to change people's work flows, and thus effecting them in an important way.
And the same can be said for all the little upgrades in Lion; it simple takes what's already there, and keeps improving it. That's the beautify of user interface design: there are so many little things you can change to make things easier, simpler and better.
Apple is constantly striving to do just that, and they're giving developers the means to do the same thing. A new shortcut for this, a new gesture for that, and a whole lot of new functionality to make everything more and more seamless. In the end the whole of Lion is greater than the sum of its parts, and all these "little" changes will have a huge, and I believe for the most part very positive, impact on how you use a computer.