Exactly, Alan. I agree it's been pushed too hard, but there's a reason for that. As Jeff points out, it's an iconic shot. To me, the interesting question is why is it iconic? Clearly, it's iconic because it's powerful. But why is it so powerful? When you say the girl's frightened you're making an assumption. We know enough about the picture, outside of the picture, to know she was uprooted and in a refugee camp. We also know that Steve didn't see this as an iconic picture when he made the shot. According to the NGM magazine story he said: "I didn’t think the photograph of the girl would be different from anything else I shot that day." We don't really know much more than that -- outside the picture
But inside the picture we know something that moves us deeply. It's not just what you call the non-human eyes, Alan, and it's not the composition or the light. What's fascinating to me is to convert the picture to B&W so you get away from the compositional enhancement produced by the complementary colors. B&W removes the color as a distraction, and in my own opinion increases the power of the picture.
I'm not going to beat the thing to death. It's a discussion you need to have verbally because there's too much to be said to try to write it all in a forum thread. But the bottom line is that what you know about this picture you know only in the picture. No outside information can enhance or detract from the transcendental experience you get from it. It's like a great piece of music or a great poem. What you know about them you know only in them. You can rattle your head all you want about what's there, but nothing you say in words can begin to explain what it is that moves you in a great work of art.
I'd suggest that what's happening to Dave and others who are so "tired" of seeing this picture is that the power of the picture keeps beating them over the head. That can be tiring.
