In addition to what @houz wrote, I’ll add that the main purpose of bracketing is to reduce noise. You could just as well tone-map the brightest image which has no clipping in the highlights and shadows where you don’t want clipping (it is acceptable for some areas of the photo to be clipped, such as the sun), but without bracketing the shadows would be noisy.
For examples of tone-mapped images made from 1 raw file vs bracketed, see these:
- Unable to get decent results using 2.5.0 - can you?
- [PlayRaw] Roadside Sunset at Newbigging, Angus, Scotland - #26 by Morgan_Hardwood bracketed
- [PlayRaw] Roadside Sunset at Newbigging, Angus, Scotland - #30 by Morgan_Hardwood single
It is easy to combine hand-held shots and mask out movement using HDRMerge.
Also see this Experimenting with multiple exposures (Hugin, HDRMerge, RT...) - #3 by Morgan_Hardwood