Kanye has done a lot in terms of bringing balance to Hip Hop. There was a point before College Dropout that you wouldn't hear a song like "All Falls Down" or "Jesus Walks" getting as much play as a club record or a street record. He's also done a lot in terms of pushing the music forward with albums like Late Registration.
Beyond that point, I think Kanye's done a lot of trend-hopping himself. After Late Registration, Kanye was jumping on a few bandwagons himself. With Graduation, it was the stadium sound which that particular sound was basically his version of T.I.'s "What You Know About That". He even got DJ Toomp to produce records for that album. Even more prevalent is him jumping on the "featuring T-Pain" and "featuring Lil' Wayne" trend that dominated 2006-2009. Then in 2008, he started using auto-tune after it was already trendy with T-Pain blowing up and even more trendy when Wayne started using it.
IMO, it just seems like it became the norm or the cool thing to label anything he does as "classic", "ground breaking" or "envelope pushing". I see it as the same thing that Wayne did when calling himself the "best rapper alive". Kanye attached such titles to himself ("ground breaking", "high end art", "envelope pushing) to the point of saying that a critic wasn't credible unless they praised his music as such. As much as people say, "Well, the media hates Kanye", he still gets glowing reviews from them. Music writers have propelled Kanye into a realm that they haven't done for any other rapper. He's heralded as the most important artists in music and some have gone as far as to place his albums over all time greats of any genre.
With that said, I feel like My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was Kanye bucking trends and him really doing him. I don't think it was a Top 10 album, all time of any genre that it was made out to be, but it's a great album nonetheless. Even Watch The Throne had it's moments. I still don't think much of Cruel Summer or Yeezus.