Pat I agree, the photo is rather dull when compare to some, but asthetics aside the price this photo fetched I believe has be looked from the point of an investment, one into Gursky's legacy and his importance to the art market, to which he has played a pretty significant role. Whether or not that investment was a good one is for history to decide.
With respects to asthetics a couple things do stand out and were mentioned in another forum. Firstly, it is extremely uncommon to run into 5 perfectly parallel lines in nature, and being able to capture it with such an expanse while keeping all lines perfectly parallel in an age before digital is a technical feat worth mentioning. The fact that it's the Rhine probably doesn't hurt either. Secondly, he was also able to capture the sky and water with perfectly match colours and tone, and the grass in the forground also perfectly matches the colour of the grass over half a mile away, how'd he manage that? I know It's easy enough for us to do these things in an age of photoshop but I think some respect must still be shown to those from the analogue era who pushed the technical boundaries of what is/was possible. So from a purely technical perspective as to how he actually captured such a scene, one could say it was is a remarkable feat. I also read that it took him 5 months of planning to be able to get this shot, that's crazy!
Now that said, I still don't quite get it myself and certainly wouldn't be shelling out that kind of money for something as benign as this photo is.
