Yes standard hihgt would look odd. I have 42" cabinets with a square trip piece plus 6" crown molding. It looks great. It does not look top heavy at all.

I personally don't like the dropped soffit look. It seems a bit dated to me.

If you direct me on how to post a picture I can show you.

If I had 10ft ceilings, I'd do a stack of glass cabinets on top of the regular cabinets. I would have loved to do that in my kitchen, but there just wasn't enough space. I know it costs more, but I think its worth it in a room with that much space to the ceiling.

The cabinets in our kitchen will reach 102'' with a 120'' ceiling. Since the cabinets have a medium stain, it may have been too cave-like to reach the ceiling. The space is 26'x13.5' and opens on to an 8' porch (functionally is 34' x 13.5'). For that reason and cost, we opted to match the cabinet height with the top of the window trim.

My 10 ft ceilings had 42" uppers with about 6" of crown in the original kitchen. When we redid it, we used 42" uppers and glass above (they are 15 or 18"?) and then a crown to the ceiling on the perimeter. My storage wall has 84" pantries and the fridge with 27" cabinets above that to the same crown. Those and the one above the ovens are solid doors in painted finishes. My room opens to a breakfast and family room that has the ceiling vaulted from 10 feet to about 14-1/2 feet, so we might have been good even with a wood finish.

I have seen wood finished cabinets done all the way to tall ceilings and look great -- they have generally been in older homes, so to 12 or 14 feet in larger kitchens. Some folks have done large boxes with 2 doors or a single door that looks like 2 doors. My cabinet person said the taller door could be too tall or heavy to hold up well over time. I think the door looking like 2 doors gives more cross support and structural integrity if you want to go that route.

A neighbor apparently wanted the look of cabinets to the ceiling and not the expense (or wasn't replacing cabinets and couldn't quite match) so they put open shelves above on one side of the kitchen painted to match the cabinets they attached to below. They have display in the top and some cookbooks underneath. It works.

I would not go with less than 42" uppers with the tall ceilings and nothing above. You can accent the open space with some lighting -- an inexpensive rope lighting or even a string of Christmas tree lights give a nice glow and won't need to be dusted to look good.