"To believe the latter, all you have to accept is that, in imagining the sort of heroic figures they themselves would like to be, straight men would project onto them not just excellence but physical beauty. Shouldn't a guy be able to do such a thing without being called gay?"

Maybe he should, but he can't. Not in 2007. The large lively object with the pulsing protuberant member which you are ignoring --- that is to say, the elephant in the room --- is the idea of the male gaze. Traditionally speaking, straight guys gaze at hotness, they don't worry about looking hot. Both grooming their own bodies for the purpose of another's aesthetic pleasure/sexual desire and appreciating the physical beauty of another man are coded as gay. To be a proper straight guy you're not supposed to notice other guys' hotness nor to effectively be able to beautify yourself. Because the straight guy is always the looker and never the look-y.

Now, this tradition is changing. Now that lots of chicks make their own money and can afford to be the mate-chooser in a relationship, there has been an accompanying shift in conceptions of masculinity. Or in other words, it's become slightly more okay for dudes to worry about how they look and to consciously try to look good. This will no longer necessarily brand them as effeminate, although they might get teased about it.

It's this relaxation of standards which has opened the door to the open public acknowledgerment of the "man crush," the relationship you think Bodhi and Utah share. (see <link>

But even though we're moving toward an era where dudes can have man crushes, as you'll note from the urban dictionary usage, man-crush admiration does not extend to the physical. It's still taboo to express desire for/appreciation of another man's body. (Or at least you might have to call "no homo," afterwards.)