HDR has so many different ways of being applied its not funny. Most people see the style where someone went "lets go EXTREEEEEEEME "and (in my eye) rightfully back away, then say the whole technique is bad, when its not.
I use HDR in many of my shots, but for me its usually more for pulling up small details otherwise lost in the shadows or for recovering details in much-too-bright highlights. There very much is a skill involved in not blowing up a shot because of sloppy HDR work, and the best (better than I at the least) can start getting near painterlike qualities because a painting will have a lot more range than you could pull off with a normal photograph.
You could say that the great artists were using HDR far before the concept was even considered.
Quick examlple:
If someone was to shoot a similar scene, they'd find the darks overwhelming, or the sky blown out unless they were extremely skilled and/or using a graduated filter of some sort.
Thomas Cole painted this as the human eye saw it, and the closest you could pull off a similar overall appearance in modern digital photography would probably be with HDR.