I can't understand why there should be a problem here regarding HDR. There seems to be a general consensus of opinion in this thread that all photographic images have to be adjusted during the various stages of their production. It cannot be otherwise. What varies is simply the degree and type of adjustment, and who controls it.
Everyone surely understands that a photograph intended for documentary, journalistic, or forensic purposes needs to appear as close as possible to what the eye has seen, otherwise such representations will be open to accusations of deception and fraud.
Now clearly, if a high contrast scene does not contain useful or interesting detail in the shadows, then it might be desirable from an artistic perspective to exaggerate such shadows and make them black, provided such totally black areas do not distract the eye and affect the balance of the composition, which is always a possibility.
In the case of a silhouette, a darkening of the shadows can enhance the effect greatly, and of course, if the gaze of the eye is directed at a bright object, as in Slobodan's sunset, the pupil cannot simultaneously contract for the highlights and dilate for the shadows, so the result might well resemble what the eye saw quite closely.
However, if the scene being captured does contain detail in the shadows, which may be useful for whatever purpose, documentary or artistic, then an HDR process may be essential in order to clearly reveal such detail that the eye has perceived in the real scene.
The attached image, taken with the Canon 5D, is merely a documentary shot which I sometimes include in a slide show of my treks in Nepal in order to give people an idea of the quality of accommodation they could expect whilst on the track.
The point of this particular documentary shot is to illustrate that the view from the bathroom window may help compensate for any deficiencies in the grandeur of the bathroom facilities.
Now, if I were to present only the shot which has been exposed for the mountain view, as visible through the window, the interior of the bathroom would appear disgusting, as is apparent in attached image #04. In example #01, the unaltered and unmanipulated image does not accurately depict the scene as it was. Only after merging 3 different exposures to HDR, as shown in image #02, and only after further extensive manipulation of the HDR image, the results of which are shown in image #03, does the scene begin to accurately represent what I saw.