Shane,
That's cool. It's part of the modern photographer's journey, I guess.
I figured you had a nice D90 (my mate who sits behind me at work has one, and coupled to his 24-70mm f/2.8 does some pretty amazing things) and would be into using it to its fullest potential. Don't let software be the weak link in the chain.
As a suggestion, try taking those 3 exposures, and, manually blend them in Photoshop for shadows, highlights and midtones, using layer masks to set your thresholds. You will find you have so much more control and will be able to produce what you see as the ideal exposure in your head. You can then go ahead and fiddle with saturation, and contrast, colour balance, etc. Of course, if this is all for fun, then, ignore these remarks and HDR away!.
My initial comment, and this one, weren't meant to be insulting, and I hope they didn't come across that way. It's just my opinion -- as mentioned, others (you, included) can and will disagree.
H