>A PhD is not so much an apprenticeship though, its goal should be to bring a novel contribution to the state of the art in the field.

I think here we have a disagreement over goals. I've always thought of a PhD as being the period in which you prove you can compose and carry out a "Minimum Viable Sustained Research Project." But it's intentionally minimal: you're supposed to get it done and start your real career as a qualified scientist.