Lightroom 2.0 Will Keep You Up All Night

Uhm, if you're me that is.

Here's a photo I made last year with my Canon 5D:

Here's that same photo with some Develop module work in Lightroom:

Here's that same image with some local corrections in Lightroom 2.0 public beta 1:

Now Lightroom users face the same dilemma that film and video colorists do. You have the tools to do whatever you want to the image. And no one but you will tell you if you've gone too far. Does the last image look better than the middle one? Does it look less natural? Do I care?

There Will Be Blood received an Oscar for cinematography, and did not undergo a DI. But No Country for Old Men did have a DI (Michael Hatzer, colorist) and was, it seemed, neck and neck for the honor. Which do you find more beautiful? More natural? More cinematic?

And which of those three criteria matters the least?