I agree with you and wrote about it more than a year ago: http://www.novemberwest.com/blog/2011/07/02/lifestyle-busine...

The short version: "I Love Lucy" was a lifestyle business dreamed up so that Lucille Ball and her husband could have children. It was easier to revolutionize an industry than have a two career couple and family, so they did. In terms of technical innovation, the show was the "Star Wars" of its day, which is part of why reruns of it still get played to death to this day.