It's such an interesting optimization problem. Maximizing annual production isn't the only goal. It's also about: never running out of power, having surplus power when useful, minimizing installation cost, minimizing maintenance cost, guarding against dust and hail, minimizing use of land, etc.
The cost is now at the point where we don't care so much about actually using every watt and when we do need more watts at a particular time we add more in "inefficient" configurations to supply it.
Whole industries are going to pop up to take advantage of the intermittent very cheap electricity. Also there will be a competitive balance between the cost of storage and the "cost" of non-optimally aligned solar panels.
Labor costs remain the limiting factor for me. The numbers only work out well if I DIY most of the work, despite being in one of the two or three most expensive electricity markets in the US. Like, the panels could be free and it'd barely change this, the labor's so expensive.
The other discouraging part is that as I understand it it's tricky to build the systems out a little at a time, e.g. start with five panels and no battery, add another five panels and batteries to the mix a few months later, add another ten panels another year later, stuff like that, without ending up with a lot of duplicated equipment and kind of a mess of an installation.
While they're more expensive, microinverters help a lot with having a more flexible install plan a few panels at a time because you just buy one inverter per panel. Also helpful if you have shading issues where a little bit of shade won't ruin a whole string of power generation.
Especially if you're not trying to achieve an off-grid/backup solution, microinverters keep your install and additions simple.
Also, when you start small you don't need or have any use for a battery. Produce less than you consume or be happy with a little bit of waste and you don't need the complexity of a battery.
There are plenty of well planned paths towards a slow accumulation of pieces and features.
So far we dont have any industries popping up, other than battery storage. Intermittent power means unused capex some of the time which means the thing needs to be cheap. Is there a category that fits?
It's not a new industry but just time based running of water heaters and water pumps is a common usage and was doing timed usage for decades before renewables was a thing, so they just need to adjust their timings.
Earth mounting reminds me of when I used to daydream about autonomous, mobile, solar panel factories to cover huge swathes of sandy desert with solar panels. I doubt the mobile factory thing would ever make sense, but autonomous installation would be really cool.
Approaches range from straight vertical to flat on the ground: https://erthos.com/earth-mount-solar/