There’s no “right” answer – de gustibus and all. I was just protesting the absolutism of the “it doesn’t work now/on a small screen.”
I’ll go one step further: You have to see it in a Cinerama theater, where you can be enveloped by the screen. Awesome. The only thing that is better visually nowadays is IMax.
My only real problem with the scene is the utterly non-convincing ape man suits. It’s not just 2001 either-- it seems like a lot of older films with otherwise convincing effects use cheezy ape suits.
I loved Midnight Cowboy when I saw it as a teenager. I haven’t seen it since. When my brother and I visited NYC in ‘99, he said "I’m walkin’ here!" every time we crossed a road. 
This is a total hijack, but I think that there are many movies that only work on a big screen in a theater and it’s not only older movies. 2001 is one of them, but I think There Will Be Blood and Children of Men are more recent examples of movies that are mesmerizing in a theater and don’t translate nearly as well to the home theater. I think part of it is the lack of distraction of seeing a slower paced movie in a theater in addition to the larger screen.
Are you aware that the ape babies were real apes, not humans in suits?
Why was Gilda a scandal? (Love that movie…)
MC was a movie of its time.
Yes, things have changed-but the scene (where Ratzo hooks up the kid with that insane evangelist guy was hilarious!).
The final bus trip to Florida was kinda sad-Ratzo never got to live his dream.