contrast & local adjustments - a proposal

[Fips]

I'm currently editing a billion shots I took on a recent trip and stumbled upon this arguably aesthestically challenged one which I took with my trusty old LX3. Very limited dynamic range this camera, but I digress. In trying to see if I could rescue the image I encountered a problem with gradients and brushes which has bothered me for a while.
I kind of liked the traffic cones and the shadows they cast on the sun lit concrete. To make them stand out more I wanted to increase the contrast (and brightness too, of course) with a gradient. Now the problem is that this doesn't work very well because of the way the the adjustment slider works: It adjusts relative to the global luminance distribution. This doen't help in this case as the luminance of both the shadows and the concrete lie in the lower half of the distribution and hence are both darkened even more when increasing the contrast of the gradient, i.e. effectively the contrast is decreased.
As a solution to that problem I propose to base the the contrast adjustment with brushes and gradients on the local contrast in the affected region.

So, what's your opinion on this? Anybody even bothered by this problem or is this just me? Maybe Eric can comment on this.

[RFPhotography]

Not sure if this is closer to what you're trying to do but I used a gradient on the lower half of the image at the same angle as the line of the trailer then used the Exposure (+2), Shadows (-100), Clarity (~+30) and Highlights (+90) sliders.  

Posting it here, the shadows of the trailer are darker than in actuality. 

[Fips]

Thanks a lot Bob. I completely forgot that I still use LR3 and as it seems my problem is already solved with LR4. In version 3 there's no shadows and highlights slider in brushes and gradients.
However, I still think it would be more useful to base the local contrast adjustment on the local luminance distribution. But maybe I'm the only one who cares 

[madmanchan]

In Lr 4, you can use the local Highlights, Shadows, or Clarity adjustments which are indeed (already) based on the local luminance distribution.  It is true that in Lr 3 there is less flexibility there.

[Fips]

Thanks Eric. That was the final incentive I needed to get LR4