You are right, Photomatix can be difficult for the novice. However, if You search the net You will find several good tuts on its use. Search for the blogs of "stuckincustoms" and "beforethecoffee". These photographers have made terrific tuts on HDR, more specifically HDR with Photomatix.
Furthermore, there are several recent textbooks on HDR by e.g. Christian Bloch, Ferrell McCollough, Michael Freeman.
On the other hand, the manual of Photomatix is rather good. If You read it (and reread it several times), You will understand the different possibilities of this software and how to use the myriad sliders.
(Version 3.1.1)