This is a valid defense! The real issue though, primarily, is that video game cameras don't emulate this well enough. My eyes don't respond nearly as fast to light changes as a video game camera does, and they're not as sensitive to small variations in the overall light level. They're also quite a bit more sensitive, especially to darkness and shadow, even in bright daylight. I find that most video game lighting exaggerates the shadows way too much.

So, adjusting the curves, especially at a slow, steady rate? That might be a good idea, and should actually aid visibility if it's done right. Say, walking all the way into a dark cave should lighten things up a bit, since your real eyes (and most cameras) would do exactly that. On paper, this part of the HDR effect works, and if it's done well it enhances the gameplay rather than distracting from it.

Imitating a faster, more jarring camera transition when it fits the mood, especially during cutscenes? That's fine, and the article gives some great examples of this being done well. Scaling up the contrast so that any HDR changes cause you to either lose all the detail in all of the darks, or all the detail in all of the lights? That's the problem. The effect, if it's there at all, needs to be a lot more subtle. This is partly due to limitations with the final RGB space (only 255 color values to work with and weird curves to boot) but mostly due to the fake-HDR effect just being a poor imitation of nature.