Until Marisa Miller (OMG OMG OMG) came along, the SI swimsuit issue for me had turned into Saturday Night Live (oops! “SNL”). Outmoded and largely irrelevant. Because of the selection of models, be them celebrity or otherwise, I’d completely lost interest in what was once, for me, the most-anticipated magazine release of the year.

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(*44 or not, would still hit it with Ichiro-like precision*)

Yeah, I’m fully aware that the SI swimmag is still the most-sold, slick paper-based issue in the world every year, and that I’m in the minority in my now-reaction to the mag when it hits the rack. Save it pal.

But I was weaned on full-bodied, classy SI cover birds like Elle MacPherson and Cheryl Tiegs. Which makes the latest pics of MacPherson a little jarring (I didn’t say disappointing, mind you).

More pics after the jump.

MacPherson was lensed galivanting in too-small swimwear in Sydney Harbor recently. She’s 44 now, and her body is hanging in there. But her face? Perhaps a few too Joan Rivers-inspired procedures. I’d be willing to wager she’d have looked better if she’d eschewed the scalpel. Those Aussies get all the genetics.

I recently read that MacPherson in now worth $70M, and refused to help bail out her sister, who just filed for bankruptcy. Elle’s decision was probably as painful as it was for me to look at those photos, and recognize my own onrushing mortality.