I agree its no 2001, and Nolan isn't Clarke or Kubrick.
I guess I didn't really view it as homage to 2001, but if I did, I would agree that it completely failed in that regard.
Yeah, it has a strong relationship theme, and though not a romantic one between him and his daughter, it has similarities to Always, and I'm a fan of that movie too ;-)
In 2001, Clarke/Kubrick pose allot of questions, and gives few answers. I don't think most audiences enjoy that type of moviegoing experience today, and the reason I say that is if I look at most commentary on a movie like Prometheus, in which Scott left it open ended and asked more questions then he answered, people were generally pretty negative and upset that he didn't explain everything.... I found Prometheus to be rather flawed for a completely different reason... which was the manner in which the characters themselves interacted and behaved.
Nolan essentially ties most loose ends together so that the audience isn't left asking questions... and that again is another flaw in the movie but I think its what most moviegoers want these days.
Whats great about movies like 2001 is that even today we can all have a discussion on "who were the monolith builders?". Contact is the same way, you come away from that movie and you want to keep talking about the central question of what is faith to me... to you... what do I believe?
Its tough these days to really do something like what Kubrick did on 2001, which lets admit, even Kubrick has lots of gratuitous special effect scenes that don't really do much for the story, but excited the audiences at the time. 2001 showed audiences something new, and challenged them to think in ways they hadn't before... so people see most space adventures as a derivative of 2001, which they probably are.
Please understand, in no way am I saying this movie is a best picture contender, but for me, the motivation, interaction and connection between the characters worked very well, which got me invested on an emotional level. As pointed out the actual plot line has its issues... and aside from the concept of gravity and time... I choose to ignore the rest of the science mcguffin because... well it just makes my head hurt!