Many people agree with you, flowers aren't the main attraction.

One of my favorites is Boule de Neige. It is a white but has great foliage. It tends to be 5 foot tall.

Nova Zembla is a sturdy red that grows to about 5 foot tall. Its leaves are good.

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A sturdy lavender with good leaves is Catawbiense Boursalt.

A good sturdy pink with excellent leaves is Janet Blair.

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Plants grow sturdier when in more sun light. Plants in shade tend to be gangly and weak. One way to make a plant sturdier is to break off the terminal buds on the longest branches in spring when the flower buds show color and before the growth buds open.

Joel, another thought - have you looked into the yaks, or yak hybrids? Rhododendron yakusimanum are among my favorites.

They are generally quite dense, wide with a naturally mounding habit, and the leaf undersides have a textural coating (indumentum) that can range from silvery buff to cinnamon - giving more foliar interest. Very pretty shrubs when not in bloom.

Yaks were my first thought but they are slow growing and low growing. They seldom reach 4 to 5 feet tall. Some Yak hybrids do get taller. Some are not hardy either. Some of the hardier ones are Barmstedt, Ingrid Mehlquist, Ken Janeck, Mist Maiden, Yaku Princess, and Yaku Queen but they seldom grow over 3 feet tall. Some of the taller yaks that may reach 4 feet are Catalina and Charles Loomis. Ingrid Mehlquist is probably the hardiest.