I see this as largely an issue of degree,...had the photoshoping stopped at 'step 3' or possibly 'step4' everyone would have 'oohed and ahhed' over the result and admired the sensitive treatment and improvement over the original file.
At the end of the day it does not really matter whether the colours at pilbara were, or were not, like those in the final image,.....what matters is that the viewer believes and enjoys the result,..that he/she does NOT go straight into 'fake mode'.......
......I have never been to Pilbara, but, having now googled and researched images for the region, and re-examined the ORIGINAL image, I do (perhaps wrongly) feel that one woulde not see anything like the final image in that place,...the strange unnatural atmosphere and overdone drama are entriely from photoshop,...and, as such, devalue the image from anything other than something that's been 'photoshopped'.
As mentioned before; plenty of people will love 'Pilbara Storm' and it will return money for it's creator, however, I'm surprised that it ( and the previous 'glowing island' fancy) has been given coverage on this site, since other photo 'fads' such as extreme HDR would be no-no's.