I myself watched
Solaris a couple of times and
2001 half a dozen times. I'd still say
2001 suffers from the same malady as any other movie of Kubrick's does, over-intellectualization and obsessive attention to detail over-compensating for the cold detachment dry of any emotional involvement. I watch his movies quite often to admire the technical brilliance. But they are so emotionally dry in general that I never found
The Shining to be even remotely scary. In my opinion, the only emotion he is effective at expressing as a film-maker is sarcasm in the context of war and human tendency to (self) destruct. That's probably why
Dr. Strangelove is my favorite among all his movies. His brilliant sarcastic sense of humor can be seen in the
war scene in Barry Lyndon. It's a personal view-point of mine though.