This is the shot straight out of Rawshooter at defaults.
No PP except for crop and resize for the web.
My eye was seeing a lot more than what I ended up taking and the colours were more vibrant than the original but not as much as the PP'd version.
As for the real benefits of Lab, I can't really say as I have only just started to play with Lab this week and don't have the use of any books at this stage.
What I have noticed to this date is that the colours are similar to turning up the vibrance in Rawshooter.
Contrast and sharpening seem less destructive when done in the lightness channel but haven't done test's to confirm or deny this.
Working in Lab
mode is a little hard to get a handle on, a book (as suggested
above) would be a very good idea.
Original Version
Thanks for the comments.