Yep, that's one of my main complaints. It's too flat and just blends in with everything.
Let's do a little bit of comparing and contrasting:
At the bottom we have the Firefox icon. Bold, vibrant, and stands out well, even against my brownish-colored taskbar. It looks dimensional, appearing to pop out at you. Hard to miss.
Above that is the IE9 icon: modern, vibrant, bold, and colorful. Even though the logo itself is pretty bright, the dark edges around the 'e' ensure that the main part of the logo will stand out, and the swoosh helps draw attention to the icon.
Not pictured is the Opera icon. Simple and elegant, but it stands out thanks to the strong bevels and shadowing.
At the top is the classic Chrome icon. There is a strong 3D effect on the icon, making it jump right out, and the Google colors are effectively portrayed. It's not as stylish as the IE icon and not as vibrant as the Firefox icon, but it works very well in the confines of an icon-sized picture.
And last but not least, the new logo. It looks passable at very large sizes, but it just looks amateurish and doesn't really stand out at all, especially if it has focus and is highlighted. The middle also looks aliased. Ugh.
Like you said, it's a good thing that it keeps the older versions available.