This is where I really see the future for landscape photography: the abandonment of the obvious in favour of the motif, the idea of something rather than a full-on confrontation with what is. Everybody knows what is; it's the subtleties that are sometimes out of sight to the casual eye.
Believe it or not, it's the same with people shots, which is why porn falls on its ass whereas the star shooters can make it an adventure in the beautiful. You only need to work with a few really successful models to understand this pretty quickly; none is perfect and it's the ability to project, to reveal something that's not all surface, that brings home the bacon.
I hope this sort of landscape thrives.
Rob C