My approach is to find a preset that provides a reasonable result and tweak the settings from there. I have used both the Contrast Optimizer and Detail Enhancer tone-mapping methods with good results. The raw file conversion in Photomatix Pro is okay, but even the dev admits it is not as good as Lightroom/ACR or other high-end raw converters. I export images from Lightroom using the plugin supplied with Photomatix Pro (if you use ProPhoto RGB in Lightroom, check the dev's website for instructions as to how to preserve this colour profile on export). The selective deghosting feature in Photomatix Pro also works very well, better than any automatic deghosting methods that I tried.

Photomatix Pro did as well as Photoshop CC (which is supposedly the best at aligning images), and better than other HDR apps, including one that makes a big deal about its ability to align handheld images. I mostly shoot sequences of 3 and 5 images handheld, so auto alignment is a critical feature.

It produced the best results, offers the most features and was the easiest to use (after some learning time).

I tried several HDR apps (and the Merge to HDR Pro feature in Photoshop CC) before deciding to buy Photomatix Pro.

Photomatix pro 6.0 lightroom plugin