I am finding the 7D is a capable landscape camera. These high megapixel cameras just take more processing.
The storm over the mesa is west of Los Lunas NM was shot in mRAW mode (10 MP) as a test. Overall I do not find mRAW that useful. It is better to shoot RAW full resolution (18 MP) to maximize detail.
I am getting good clean sky and low noise with this process:
Take photo at lowest possible ISO to maximize quality
-- useful step for any camera
Process RAW file in DPP
-- no image sharpening in DPP
-- no noise reduction in DPP
-- Output as 16-bit TIF
Process 16-bit TIF in Photoshop CS4 (64bit)
-- open 16-bit TIF from DPP
-- fine tune image if required
-- reduce noise with Neat Image v6.1 (64bit)
-- sharpen using CS4 "smart sharpen" filter
-- check results of "auto contrast", "auto color"
-- output edited image at max quality JPG file
I will share more New Mexico photos in the Landscape forum.
