I have a different take on Photomatix Pro. I do not think it's a great program. Not at all. I think it's a great technology, but I think the application has the clunkiest, most obnoxious user-interface of any HDR software I've tried. That said, I use it sometimes. Here's one I did with it and had in my graduating portfolio at Hallmark Institute of Photography:
My issues have nothing to do with the end output; it's possible to get fantastic images out of Photomatix, and it gives you a lot of control. But teh application is clunky and slow. The refresh rate on images is awful, especially when you're used to working in Lightroom or Photoshop, and receive live feedback on slider adjustments.
The tone mapping controls have very obtuse names, and it's difficult to know what is going on as you adjust the sliders. Because the names give you very little indication what the sliders do, and there's no live feedback, it feels kind of like a crap shoot every time you make an adjustment.
John Paul Caponigro had an excellent article in Digital Photo Pro earlier this year that explained each slider. It was an excellent article, something like a Photomatix bible, and I like to keep it beside me for reference when I work with the application. It's funny, though, because Photomatix is the ONLY application I use where I constantly feel like I need that "Bible" at my side. For me, that speaks volumes to the application's lack of intuitive usability. There's nothing intuitive about it. In this day and age, I've come to expect from from a user interface.
Performance-wise, though, Photomatix still outstrips Adobe's HDR implementation in Photoshop. What I really wish would happen is that Adobe would buy out Photomatix and implement the processing technology into Photoshop and Lightroom. That would be incredible.
An alternative worth keeping an eye on for Mac users is
Hydra. It's not quite on the same level as Photomatix yet for image making, but when it comes to user interface and ease of use, Hydra runs circles around Photomatix. If Adobe isn't going to buy Photomatix out, I wish the Hydra people would ... Somewhere in the grey area between Photomatix and Hydra, I'm convinced is the perfect HDR application. We just haven't seen it yet.
I'm told there's a Lightroom plugin for Hydra in the pipeline as well, so that's something I'm looking forward to.