Does an ultra-wide lens perform well in landscape photography?

I own a DSLR for less than a year, currently shooting with my Nikon D90 and 18-70mm DX lens. Since the beginning of it, I am deeply in love with shooting landscapes photography: seascapes, skyscapes, cityscapes.

I am thinking of upgrade to what I believe the next best lens for landscapes photography: 10-24mm DX lens, but I received mixed messages makes me doubting and delaying my decision.

From what I see in web posts/pages and discussion with friends, ultra-wide lens photography is not about "fitting more in" but "putting subject into the picture": "covering more into photo" was what I after and this sounds like maybe this 10-24mm isn't for me.

Here's an example photo of my photography style:

(More can be found in my flickr album: http://www.flickr.com/photos/travaganza/ )

So the question was, is an Ultra-wide lens going to enhance my landscape photography experience as I will be able to "cover more into picture"? Or will I end up with an expensive specialised lens that I will be annoyed by amount of distortion on edges (and post-correction will end up 'zooming' the end product)?

Thanks in advance :)

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Edit: The question title is way to subjective. I update the question title hopefully it points my question to a better direction :-/ The new question title is: "Does an Ultra-Wide Lens perform in Landscape Photography?", where perform as it: "whether it is designed for". Again, I'm fairly new to photography, don't be too harsh on me :S

Answer

Yes and No. That's the only true answer.

A lens has to be adapted to your vision and subject. Landscape is a very broad category and I know fine-art landscape photographers who mainly shoot with wide lenses and others mainly with telephoto lenses (ex: 70-200mm).

The angle-of-view of ultra-wide lenses really emphasizes the foreground. Moving back with a longer lens is not equivalent (as someone suggested) as it changes the relationship between of things at different depths.

In some locations you end up very close to the scenic vistas (beaches, nature trails) and there are interesting foreground details which deserve emphasis (flowers, seashells, moss, etc) in which case a wide-angle be easier to compose with. Other locations, the interesting things are far and without a long lens is becomes difficult to make an interesting shot.

Regardless of what angle-of-view your lens is, you have to be able to fill the frame with interesting things. Jay Maisel says 'Everything in your frame helps you or hurts you'. If I can crop an image without changing the aspect ratio of my frame, I consider that I failed to take the best shot possible.

Take the shots from you gallery for example and imagine if there was more to the sides and above or below. Would the shot be more interesting? Or would people start wondering what its about?

SUBJECTIVE PART NOW :)

Honestly, I consider myself a wide-angle shooter, most of my photos are taken wide but I also know that it is much harder to make a wide shot work. That does not mean, I should just shoot with a longer lens because what I see in a scene is how things combine and contrast, some people see details more and that is simply a different way of seeing.