There really isn't anything much different about the launcher. It's the system apps that had most of the changes.
Plus hype is because this is Samsung, they have the second biggest clout in terms of dictating the future of smartphones after Apple. In some ways they are bigger even, having restarted this whole curved screen and glass sandwich design we're now having, and now punch hole cameras with Huawei now following suit after them in that regard. Plus if you look at Google, if one of Samsung's features hit it big they copy it into Android natively, for example multiwindow, DeX (they're making Android desktop mode for Q), to name a couple. If this new move things downward design thing gets popular, you might see this as material design 3 or something.