I notice that I was quoted above.
There is no huge difference guys. Shadow is using almost exactly the same protocol (and methods of providing anonymity) as cryptonote with some minor tweaks (fewer denominations for each digit, which either way is a reasonable but somewhat arbitrary trade off between chain size and anonymity set size)
People said that Satoshi's Bitcoin invention wasn't so great either. They said the encryption and most of the schemes were already invented. The brilliance of Satoshi however, was putting those pieces that were invented by others before him, together in a brilliant way that created a powerful incentive system. I see what Shadow is doing as much similar. Perhaps the developers borrowed and used techniques from those that came before, but what they have done is put those pieces together in a unique genius way. It has the same essence and feel as Bitcoin does, and I like that.