Quick question or two about HDR

Lightroom.

I am noticing that some of the pictures I took after the sun was up, that were not backlit ended up gaining a lot of "punch" and clarity. There were not what I would have expected to gain much by, but I kind of like the effect. It isn't a dramatic difference, but it is there.

Just out of curiosity, how many separate images do most of you use? I was thinking about redoing one of the 5 image merges with 3 and see how different it is.

I'm also curious how this technique would look using the Pup's D5600. A crop sensor may benefit more from this than a full frame since they have less dynamic range.