Indeed

And quite a few of these flickr photogs that I follow, are completely unknown people. A great number are people I talk to in the Pentax forum, including some grandpas and grandmas who have been shooting with Pentax since it was the best selling brand in the world (i.e. the 60s and 70s).
Gursky - I like him and I think he's quite a trendsetter that people will be imitating (like you said, for sheer size and clarity). Which in turn will keep large format film photography alive... and yes I think he's done some awesome stuff. But that Rhein II pic? Please. I know it's not his fault that someone wanted to pay like 4 million dollars for it. But that's the least impressive pic of his I've ever seen... and since that Peter Lik pic might be a bit of shenannigans (completely private transaction handled by lawyers), it could very well be the most expensive picture ever, still.
Oh, and do something cool if you enjoy photography. Take some of those photographs in my favorites list - for instance, this one:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bastian_k ... 75085@N02/Put it on your big monitor, press "L" to see it take up pretty much the entire screen. And now feel like you're there. That's kind of what I look for in enjoying a landscape picture.
And this picture only has had 6 "likes" ever, including me. It was made with an old inexpensive lens I want to buy sometime this year, that's how I found it.