Currently some people are making beautiful HDR images like these. This takes an input image with a high dynamic range (often composed of multiple exposures with different exposure times to get good colour resolution over a wide range of brightnesses) and "compresses" the range down to monitor or printout ranges. This can give an effect similar to an oil painting (painters use similar techniques).
But such techniques will soon become unnecessary as the dynamic range that monitors can display increases. As I've mentioned before I've seen this technology in action and it's seriously impressive - the pictures are incredibly realistic, like looking out of a window. As these monitors drop in price they will become ubiquitous and then we will want to take pictures that take full advantage of them.
Shooting RAW with a good digital SLR goes some way towards this, but I think that with the new generation of monitors will come a new generation of cameras optimized for taking HDR images. This might be as simple as reading the sensor several times over the course of the exposure, or it might be a completely new sensor design.
With new monitors and new cameras, the entire graphics pipeline will be re-engineered for HDR.