Thanks for the comments so far.
I've got into a habit of shooting verticals ever since I got one published as a cover. As John rightly pointed out, there is more use for a photo than just fine art gallery. Not that I am saying this one is cover-worthy, mind you, just that I explore vertical compositions as well.
For those who are wandering what's on the right, I at attaching a horizontal composition. This one is also less aggressively processed, i.e., closer to the out-of-camera version.
Scott, you are right, the vibrance was purposefully lowered a bit (in the vertical version), to counter other aggressive post-processing moves. Some of the vibrance is also lost in web conversion.
EDIT: Some loss of vibrance and crispness is also a consequence of seeing it both here and on Flickr against a white-ish background. For best viewing experience, once on Flickr, press L or just click on the picture, to see it bigger and on a plain, black background.