HDR Plea

Mt Kebnekaise, the highest mountain of Sweden, in Lappland
Recently, the results of the UK Landscape Photographer of the Year Award were published. BBC News made an announcement on theirwebsite, and a very interesting thing happened. Most of thereaders commentswere not praising the winning images but complaining about one thing: they looked like "HDR". By that, they meant overly contrasted and saturated images that appear unrealistic (on a sidenote, I am fairly sure that only one of the eight winning photos actually was HDR).
The technique has indeed a very bad press, especially in the "fine art" community, and to be fair, much of the criticism is justified. But the point I would like to make here is that, well used, it can be very powerful and look perfectly natural, and is sometimes the only way to capture a scene as our eyes see it. Because there are so many widespread misconceptions about HDR, and because most online resources focus on how to achieve this overcooked effect that so...