"What do you think are innovative features in WordPress? I’m especially curious to see how users answer the question versus developers."

Definitely a user here, not a developer. I've been at it awhile though, so if say WordPress were IKEA furniture, I wouldn't need to glance at the instructions in order to put it together. :)

I remember the initial draw of WordPress 7 or 8 years ago (perhaps it's been longer) was the ability to differentiate posts and pages. As a blogger who wanted a very small site with a few extra but separate pages, that was handy. I'd be interested to know the breakdown between bloggers and those using WordPress as a CMS now though.

I can't think of any recent updates to the core that have wow'd me, though I like the more recent changes to the Customizer. Rather, when someone asks me why they should choose WordPress over an out-of-the-box solution like SquareSpace, I usually point to the infinitely expansive plugin and theme development community.

While a user might outgrow Weebly, it's really unlikely they would ever outgrow a WordPress powered site (rather, it can grow up and around them).