I like the bright daylight pic to be a bit underexposed though, that would keep the texture of the cloud and it would not look just silly pale. but i don't shot RAW much, mabye should try that to see if there is possibility that the highlight could be keep without underexposed it. also, torn between spot and matrix metering sometimes cause i dont' have the good feel to judge the corrected how much to EV+/- , as mentioned by night86mare by using manual.
the only way is to try more right?