One of the issues with shadow recovery is that our eyes see the real thing with a wider dynamic range than either a printed photo or an image on a monitor can reveal. When I look at a loco, portions of the image may be dark, but I see the detail because my eye can see the full range from dark to white. When areas are lightened in an image editing program, I can now see the detail but the overall image looks somewhat artificial.
There really isn't anyway around this, since the choice is to print it dark and lose detail but the overall image looks right or lighten areas to reveal detail but then the overall image looks manipulated. This pretty much falls into the range of personal preference. Long time film shooters probably prefer less shadow recovery, while digital savvy shooters would rather see the detail and have accepted the new look.
Michael Allen