I'm not a professional photographer, but have been shooting for a few years and ended up moving into HDR for about 2 years. From my experience, the best HDR is the ones where it's subtle. Where details are brought out of the shadowed areas and blended nicely with higher lit areas. It's surreal, but hard to put your finger on it.

I think the hate comes from many folks either overdoing the settings or broadcasting that it's HDR (look guys, that guy shoots HDR!...see, nobody cares).

Again, here's my take on well executed HDR

example 1 example 2 example 3

most of the stuff you'd likely find though is folks aren't happy with subtle results, and as they begin to adjust the settings...it's the lobster in water phenomenom. At first it's bad..then then settle in...then they adjust, get used to to..then adjust again until it looks more like a cartoon or video game.

example 1 example 2 example 3

of course..then there's the truly shitty HDR

such as example 1 example 2 example 3