I've not been a fan of the HDR look but recently I down loaded the Lightroom presets from lightroomkillertips.com. Not having had any good opportunities to go out an take any new photos lately, I decided to mess around in Lr using a photo I took over a year ago in Death Valley.
Hmmm. What can I do with this? Well, I started with a no-star shot, added the HDR Strong Look to it, put in a reverse gradient filter on the dark clouds and a couple of other touches. Not too bad. Then I converted to black and white, added another gradient across the top, adjusted the contrast a bit and tweaked the colors... even better.
I guess it just goes to show that you shouldn't pre-judge something just because it doesn't run to your tastes. And, with Lightroom, there is potential in even the reject shots.