I don't think making things up is the problem, it's if it's believable. If it's indistinguishable to a viewer, then who cares. I never would have thought the HDR of the clouds was "made up".
I would use it on every single video I've ever made myself, because intent had nothing to do with how my videos look. They were made with then best camera I had available, and HDR has only been available relatively recently.
This is a tool that I want to use. If nobody can tell I used it, that's a good thing for me. If you don't want to use it, then nobody is making you.
So I calibrate all my media consumption displays etc. I could never see myself using some automated SDR -> HDR conversion like this.
Even if it looks natural, it doesn't look like it was supposed to, and I want to see it how it was supposed to look.