I feel that vitalik created blockchain 2.0, which should be regarded as a milestone in the currency circle. In the world of blockchain, his contribution is second after Satoshi Nakamoto.
I do not think so. If you are referring smart contract within blockchain as a new innovation then I guess such a feature was introduced before ethereum in this crypto world (please correct me if my memory is not serving me exact things). In my opinion, Vitalik was smart enough to convince most IPO devs to adopt ethereum even they were having multiple options for the same purposes. For example, waves also got options to provide smart contract things but for unknown reasons most devs are not bothering it for issuing tokens.
Anyway, I respect Vitalik at least for standing along with his project till date and making it 2nd most successful crypto unlike what dogecoin and litecoin devs did.