I agree - the interactions are complex, and you might not always want rejection.
Pure long exposure has no rejection, of course, but just averages everything. And that might be more desirable from an aesthetic stand point. I think a lot of experimentation is required.
An even stranger thing happens for HDR of moving water. The highlight exposures are short and tend to freeze motion. The exposures for dark areas are long. So this puts a weird look on the moving water - the ability to freeze motion becomes a function of tonality.
This can look awesome, or really bad - depends on the circumstance. I have an approach for that.