There's a few things here and there, like you mentioned: styrofoam hives, all plastic frames, all plastic drawn frame, all plastic drawn frames small cell, screened bottom boards, vented covers, special smokers, shb traps, and all that. There are some things I'm sure in the aspect of queen rearing and package raising that makes it easier for the industry, (like the nucs you mentioned), but not a lot of that makes it over to the hobby small scale side.
Nothing really takes off too much because it is hard to beat the versatility and price of plain old wood and wax. And there usually isn't high enough volumes to bring the prices down.