Do you think Firefly would have survived longer than a season if they hadn't insisted on a new pilot?
Honestly? No. I don't think American viewers as a whole were ready for Cowboys in Space. What I think is, the collaborative efforts of everyone involved in getting the concept to the screen paved the way for new tech and new uses of existing tech. Two quick examples:
Handheld in space. Joss wanted the fast and dirty, immediate, on the fly filming rather than the careful, deliberate filming of objects or movement in space. So the camera people and the cgi folks had to figure out ways to make it look like somebody was standing on the exterior of a ship filming Reavers or the Dortmunder or Serenity herself *moving* against a static background, get it not-centered in frame and a little blurry from the speed.
BSG and theatrical release movies used and improved on that technique thereafter.
Universal music. Greg Edmonson took music from many cultures and combined it in unprecedented ways, and used it unexpectedly to underscore scenes that seemingly had nothing to do with the cultures the music came from. Combined with bluegrass and celtic and even early rock, the music called out familiarities and the exotic in juxtaposition, making the viewer aware of just what a heady collection of cultures had come out to the rim while it gave us touchstones from home. BSG in particular used the same "world music" influences combined with familiar cadences and harmonies, along with martial music--all of it used in close and sometimes unexpected proximity to give the viewer comforting familiarity in the midst of exciting strange and new.
Firefly was a turning point in American tv viewers' awareness, much like Star Wars (alright, "#4: A New Hope") was for both audiences and industry fx. It readied the audience who found it strange and offputting itself, while it whetted an appetite we were previously unaware we had.
IMO, anyway.