Banality of PhD Work

I just read a review where the reviewer used the phrase, "results seem somewhat banal." This phrase seemed quite harsh: it's somewhere in the same area on the continuum as "obvious", and definitely in the area one would say, "is not a contribution." Just to make sure, I looked up "banal" in the dictionary: "drearily commonplace and often predictable; trite". I think you could make a good argument that work that is labeled "banal" is worse than "obvious." It's "drearily commonplace". Ouch.

To every PhD student, I think this kind of review is the one we fear. The purpose of a PhD is to provide an "original contribution to human knowledge": if someone says your results are "banal", well then, obviously, your stuff wasn't original enough.
Just to make this perfectly clear, I have drawn up a sketch (see above). I've numbered the important points on the scale that reflect how you feel about your work... and usually, these numbers are correlated with how far along you are in your PhD. Note that I'm currently in the midst of a #3.5. Note also that #5 is purely speculation. If I make it that far, I'll let you know how good my prediction was/is.