very interesting I tend to agree (with some cavets; Brogue but it seems to be a distilation and perfection more than advancement)
but would like to hear your arguments.
Perfection is advancement. Refining existing concepts is as important as (imo more important than) creating new ones.
It of course is semantic and most likely an illusion of categories.
-I am defining refinement as the whittling down to essentials and advancement as innovation.
A sufficiently "advanced" rogue-style game just would not be recognizable as a rogue-like.
Dwarf-fortress and FTL come to mind both make it to my to ten list neither is really linked to rogue/larn/hack/omega.
The innovations set them outside the genre.
Perhaps Rogue-like is a Genre with a ceiling.
making a musical analogy blue grass with tubas, thermins and trap drums might be cool as hell
but at some point it just is not bluegrass.