Well, Chris, I'm trying to make some sense of your narrative. Just can't imagine what you could possibly mean. After all, what kind of a moron would post portrait style shots of individual flower blooms?

And no, I'm not going to say anything about the focus of the flower in front because I know that this image is probably pretty close to exactly what you were attempting. And it's a beauty.

If I ever take another flower shot, I have your Flickr shots and comments stored for the occasion.

I like the way attention is drawn to the in-focus mallow flower - but - personally I find the blurred bloom takes up too much room and detracts my eye.
Beauty of course is in the eye of the beholder and we all see things differently so my suggestions are purely just what for me (and maybe only me) would make the image more attractive. I would have cropped away some of the blurred portion and added a little blurred vignette to the rest of the picture. Also would have sharpened the centre of the flower a little more. If I had done all that it would have ended up something like THIS