Thanks, David, but I figured this out thanks to advice from my KD. We moved the 2 cans to the other side of the joist. She had designed them to be 54" OC (9' ceilings, forgot that part of the formula when I was stressing yesterday) and in their new location, they'll be 57" OC. Close enough for the remodeling game. If we run into a similar situation for another room, I will definitely keep disc lights in mind.

Your contractor's layout is preferable, though moving the lights closer to the counter tops would be fine - between 24" - 30". If you use lights like the Cree CR4 or CR6, there will be sufficient spillover to augment the light from the pendants over the island in the center of the room. If the pendants provide insufficient light, they can be swapped out/ higher output led lamps may be used. Rationale The counter tops will be better lit with UCL than cans. Even if you do have the ability to put can lights over the counter tops, the distance to the counter top reduces the amount of incident light. There should be sufficient distance from the crown molding around the upper cabinets to the cans so that the trim can be fit and look properly spaced. A more regular pattern is preferable as it isn't like a random pattern of holes in cheese. Eyeball cans are more troublesome in the long run. The final location of the cans will be determined by the layout of the ceiling joists as well as obstructions above the ceiling board. There has been ample discussion on the DIY led recessed lighting guide for kitchens thread on this topic

the two should be fine. in my spare bath I have one over the shower and just the vanity light,,,(has 4-60w bulbs). plenty of light. 2 cans over a vanity, plus your vanity light, seems a bit much. example of your size bath (give or take) with only vanity light and shower light two smaller shower lights, vanity light

We're trying to figure out where to place and how to space our 4" LED cut-in recessed lights (750 lumens each): The kitchen has lowish ceilings (8 ft) so we don't want it looking too much like swiss cheese since it's somewhat in your upper eye line. However, we obviously want it functional. Our understanding is that the 'sweet spot' for placement of recessed lights is over the countertop edge so we tried to maintain that. We also have two pendants (Rejuvenation 18" Butte) split over a long island/peninsula (a little over 9.5 feet) Here are some renders so you can better visualize the space: What are your thoughts? Would you make any alternate suggestions? One thing we want to work around is the range hood. The range hood insert is fairly deep, so in effect it will come out nearly to countertop depth, which is why we didn't want to place a light centered over range (since it would basically just be shining on the front face of the range hood and nothing else. Also note, we are planning undercabinet lighting on the two wall cabinets that sit on either side of the range to provide some additional task lighting to those countertops. Thanks for your input!