Sorry. You can only live with what you see. The colour and the gloss level are both ganging up on you. Dust is "lighter" than the floors = grayish smears. Body oils (ie. foot prints, sock prints, etc) are SHINIER than your floors = oily streaks. And dust STICKS to OIL. Perfect storm. To get "polyurethane" to grab, you will need a buff and coat (high chance of failure = need a new floor) or a full sand and refinish. At that point, you can simply stain it a lighter colour. Try rubbing alcohol to clean up some of the nastier areas. Just make sure you use SMALL amounts and only in WELL VENTILATED AREAS! The vapours can be tough if you use too much or in a small space. The colour is the biggest problem. A lighter colour would have camouflaged these prints much, much better.

Your husband is right -- that's just math. The exterior of your house is very expensive: Foundation, brick, roofing, etc. And a square house will have more square footage in relation to the exterior. However, when you build a square, you will -- by necessity -- have space in the middle that is hard to design and/or is dark because it's not on the exterior. So a square works best if it's a small square. For a perfect example, look at floorplans for a classic American FourSquare. Typically you'll have a center hall with a staircase, and four rooms opening off of it. Whether it's cheaper to go "up" or "out" depends upon where you live. If you live in a place where land is expensive, "up" is probably your best best. And in such a location, "up" is cheaper because you need less foundation and less roofing. BUT when you build "up", you have to use up square footage on staircase, which is not useful living space, and heating two levels is more tricky than heating one. For a good write-up /comparison from a professional, try Marvin Ferguson's book Better Homes, Better Living (I hope I got that name right). On the other hand, your husband is wrong about the joists being cheaper. If you're trying to be frugal, be sure you standard sizes in everything from joists to windows, a simple footprint, consolidated plumbing, and a simple roofline. Those things will make more difference than square vs. almost-square.

snmanning, what did you go with? How has your floor stood up to wear and tear?

That's a foot print in the stain not just in the finish. Yes the 'fix' is to to a patch repair. They would sand down the area to raw wood, restain that area and then apply 2 coats of finish (with all the appropriate cure times to be observed). Then the entire floor gets a final coat of finish. It is the FINAL coat that offers the continuous finish/gloss level. To reduce your fears, Satin is a VERY forgiving finish. It has a lovely glow. This glow DULLS DOWN as it ages. It might start off as a HIGHER GLOSS Satin (be prepared) but it will ALWAYS settle down. This takes 1-3 months. So don't panic if you see a nice glowy floor on day 1. That will change. Once the 3 months has passed, the floor will sit happily at the satin level it was destined to be. Then, like all floors, it slowly dulls down withe wear. Higher traffic areas dull a little faster. So your foot print area (being in a high traffic spot) will mostly likely dull down nicely. The question becomes: Which bugs you more? A foot print such as the one you found (noticeable once you know it's there) or a *possible* sheen difference that will disappear with age? There is only one person who can answer that question - and that's you. Permanent foot print vs. 'disappearing' gloss difference? I'm not worried about the gloss level. I would worry about the stain variation.