Perfectly valid points, but the point I'm trying to make is that, depending on the age of the material, either HDR is not going to make a difference, or it's going to expose detail deliberately obscured as an artistic flourish or for special effects purposes. It's great that we have these tools...
Sigh. Some people just don't understand that films of a certain vintage don't need to be gussied up with HDR, not to mention the issues you had with this particular film.
Did anybody read the article? Remember, for the 4K restoration, the elements were scanned at 8K and then finished at 4K. The existing 8K scans are being used for this version. They brought back the colorist from the 4K version to do an 8K colour pass.
Sat down and watched this yesterday. Wow! I thought the previous restoration looked good in SD, but this is a revelation. A perfect diversion for a Sunday afternoon.