@valdore - As you said, HDR made it so you can shoot directly into the sun. Why not just shoot with the sun to your back? You proved even further than HDR is the crutch of a terrible photographer.
First of all, get a brick, second, drop it on your nuts. Done? Great now maybe the crushing pain will allow you to focus.
We don't care about your ability. It's not to say that you suck (however, me/= to it, says you suck), but you have no position to criticize anything when you state that your first HDR was a year ago when you were a "terrible photographer" (so baseline says suckage). One year does not make you a great photographer; it doesn't matter what camera you use, what books you read, how you process your film or whore the pixels through photoshop. If you sucked a year ago, by now you've learned what landscape and portrait is now.
So, now that the pain is dulling slightly from the brick, let's analyze your quote.
If HDR is a crutch for a terrible photographer, and your proof is that he used HDR to get a properly exposed image in direct sunlight ( and a damn3d good one) then you obviously haven't actually ventured from your couch outside to witness the world. In fact, I can prove this to you. Pick up your camera. Point it at something. Say you are pointing it at a brick (the one that was used to make you focus is fine) and a desklamp in front of you. In this painstakingly developed metaphor, the brick is the structure in the image, and the desklamp, naturally, the sun. So as you instructed, "shoot with your back to the sun", so do it, spin 180 degrees around. Go ahead, do it. Done? Fantasmic! You'll now notice that you do infact have your back to the metaphorical "sun". However, THE SUBJECT ISN'T THERE? How is this? What? It isn't possible to move the sun and/or static buildings?
Lesson over.
Stick to your film. On that note, btw, your prints are done at walmart.