[mst]

The point here is not: do the images look natural or fake (I like them, btw). It is simply a matter of personal taste how much pulling of shadows (or highlights) one still finds attractive or considers HDR overkill. There is no right or wrong.

The point is: does the camera's sensor provide enough information to offer some buffer for this kind of post processing or not.

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for those shots I can easily have the same result using RP, however I would  have exposed a little more to the right without burning out highlights to avoid noise in shadow areas.
shooting to the right then decreasing exposure to taste is always a valid approach

As you can see in the lower shot, there is already some clipping in the bright spots of the clouds. So, moving exposure further to the right probably would have caused trouble.