I've been having a look at your thread with the church set "Church of St. Nicholas - My best shots + HDR " (over here:
http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=46062 ) and they have a lot of darkness anyway. Most of your foreground subjects are in shadow but there are bright patches of sunlight in the background that are properly exposed or just close to burnt out. Some lovely skies.
Are you metering off your subject area or letting the camera take a best guess on overall exposure?
The bright patches also tend to spoil your nice composition as the eye is drawn to the bright patches beyond instead of the relatively dulled out subject area.
Its a bit of a shame as I like quite a few for their composition, but the dull subject lighting drops out the wow factor. Have you tried using any fill flash outdoors?