But KyoAni has been branching out.
The problem here is that they are 'only' producing one anime series at a time. So the speed of them diversifying is rather... glacier. I often compare KyoAni to Blizzard as a metaphor, as both companies share a similar policy of one product at a time, both insist on high-calibre production values, and are both relatively new to their respective worlds.
Just as KyoAni's current claim to fame lies in its' ability to adapt light-novels, Blizzard's claim to fame lies in its' RTS-genre games. Both are trying to branch out in varying degrees. Blizzard had tried to make an Adventure game but that got cancelled in favour of WC3, which subsequently led to their first true genre-deviation in a grand way. A MMORPG, known to many as World of Warcraft(WoW), now currently ranked as the most populated MMORPG ever.
Blizzard is also trying to create a FPS. The infamous Starcraft:Ghost. If it ever gets completed, it will be a nice test of whether Blizzard can compete in even more genres.
So we come back to KyoAni. Let's see...
FMP!Fumoffu!, Air(TV), FMP!TSR, SHnY, and now Kanon(2006), with Lucky Star in the near future. We will ignore their other anime-productions, since those were joint efforts.
Considering that we only have...
six anime series to draw conclusions upon, I think it is a little too early to dismiss KyoAni as an one-trick pony. What do you want them to do? A different genre every time? That would be ridiculous.
It would be nice to see an original production from KyoAni in the future of course, but we need to be realistic here as well.
Lance Armstrong is God-like in cycling, but does that mean we need him to be Godly in other sports as well before we start to respect him? It would be a nice bonus and grant him much more kudos, but should we deny him his due respect just because of his speciality?
Cheers.