i dont have the original "just right" photo, but there were lots of things wrong with it that made hdr the best option. there were huge areas of underexposure and the sky was in a state of overexposure in a lot of places...it was early sunrise, so there was not that much ambient light yet.
I'm not the type to use hdr for no reason, or as the "fad". I use it in those situations where the resulting "normal" pics have huge areas of harsh shadows/highlights....to mainly, bring out the whole dynamic range of a subject..which it was initially intended for.
I'm glad so many like this. I went for as soft and unprocessed look as possible. I am not a fan of overly "HDR" looking photos (as, honestly most of my earlier hdr pics were)...I really wanted to bring out the softness/warmness of the light, and just to eliminate the harsh shadows. glad to see that i seemed to have accomplished that.