Color Grading Flat Preset

Today I learned an awesome bit of information about how to properly use the picture styles in the camera and how they apply to post production color correction.  And what I learned was that in order to get a greater dynamic range from my camera (visible stops from white to black) I need to shoot flat (low contrast and saturation) and pull apart the footage in post.  How I've been approaching filming recently has been to have the color preset be what I want so that I get the best quality directly out of the camera.  Now I learn that this approach actually limits the capability of potential image quality.  So here's some examples of my first attempt with shooting a flat style and pulling it apart in post.  I noticed a great deal of noise, however.  I had the noise reduction setting on my camera reduced so I will try again with this set all the way up.  Could also be that I'm editing this in FCP7, so I will try again at my home computer on FCP X to see if it makes a difference.