The sun is not at the center of the solar system. The intellectual leap was not to replace earth with the sun. Earth does not "revolve around the sun". The intellectual leap was to realize that the situation is somewhat symmetric -- they both attract each other, and they orbit around their center of gravity (which, yes, is in the sun. But not because the sun is the center.)

This sounds like a distinction without consequence, but I think that's wrong. The sun is not special. It just has a lot of mass. If somebody learns: The earth orbits the sun-- They don't understand how two black holes can orbit each other. If somebody learns: The sun and the earth orbit their CM -- They will be able to understand that.