Staking is starting to evolve quite a bit. It was the one thing that remained static in operation. Now, additional incentives beyond yield are starting to play a major role. The massive appreciation in exchange tokens is at least partially due to the staking incentive of IEO access.
And right, you make a valid point on Tezos baking.
MN pooling and its variations have been around for a while and let people collectively join in the staking process.
From that point, any staking offer can be made accessible.
Indeed, but what Tezos (and other coins) started to offer is to participate in the staking process without the need to send your funds to a staking pool, wich reduce the risk by a lot.