I've always watched it just for the spacecraft. I even have the restored version on DVD.
When it came out in 1968, 2001 was state-of-the-art not just in special effects, but in a best-effort projection of what real spacecraft would be like.
I think the book and the movie did not take the dead hand of the federal government into account in space exploration and travel. And who'da thunk that the closest thing to a real spacecraft (the shuttle) would have a cockpit that looked like the glass cockpit of a modern commercial airliner?