Google culturally is very pro-Java, and decided to bring that to their new mobile platform, without the legacy baggage of J2ME. It was an engineering decision as much as it was against licensing Sun IP, maybe in light of how poorly J2ME ever did as a development platform.
Android was in development since 2005 and the major post-iPhone change that happened was a larger screen and virtual keyboard, which is what every modern phone has.
There are companies which have blazed trails and Google has not blazed many with its products; but they bring something equally as important to customers as innovation: competition and choice.