In the 2 homes that we have owned, we have done it both ways. In our first home we had the oak strip flooring refinished and we painted the quarter round to match with the trim. In short order they were scuffed and chipped badly. In our second home we refinished the old oak strip flooring in the downstairs and they automatically stained the quarter round. I had never seen this before, but 30 years later, the quarter round is as good as the day they stained it. I love it. It does not appear odd at all. In fact it just blends in with the floor. We chose this staining again when we did the upstairs a few years ago. Upstairs we have some oak and some maple and both floors/quarter rounds look amazing, clean and unobtrusive.

"Quote" I am not a big fan of "it's not the trend," or "it's not popular." That seems what decorators or merchants interested in selling their latest ware might parrot"unquote" I agree..... In our last last we replaced the carpet in our FR with brazillion cherry (seemed to be the trend at the time) and while it looked good I hated it, I missed the carpet in there. The house we are in now we just replaced the carpet in FR with new carpet , a nice plush frieze . The kitchen has custom oak cabinets which I didnt like at first , but after a year , I'm starting too like them.

I have done this. We have oak railings in this house that were very ho-hum, so I decided to stain them darker with polyshades. I mixed Walnut & Bombay Mahogany & while I would have liked them to be a bit darker brown & less reddish, I'm very happy with the way they turned out. My railings did not have a really shiny finish, so I didn't sand or anything, just painted right over them with the Polyshades. I used a small cheap chipbrush, so I could just throw them away, since Polyshades is oil-based & I hate working with oil. It covered really well in one coat & I just went back & did a quick 2nd coat on areas that were a bit too light. I didn't even tape off the spindles or anything & it was quite easy to control the coverage. Here's a before & after..the best pics I have available right now. Now the railings are much darker than the floor & I think it looks much better & richer. And it really wasn't hard to do at all. Well worth the effort. Before: After:

So, does this mean you have to have a new kitchen floor laid? The color looks good. In your first pictures, I preferred the lightest color, then the next lightest. I thought the dark one looked like a "wanna be walnut, but I'm oak". I have a prefinished oak flooring in natural that I have had for 10 years and I love it. Its by Mirage. I appreciate the light fresh look with my rooms. I had to have it reinstalled because the subcontracted installer banged up every nail insertion, because he must have had a damaged nailer. The owner of the flooring company came out the the flooring rep from Mirage, and they determined it was installation error. The finish was warrantied for something like 30 Years (can't remember the number) but with all the nicks, it wouldn't last. New install was great and the floor has been very good to me :) I'm getting it again soon in my bedroom, using a different installer company. All this to say I love my light flooring. It is fresh and can go modern or traditional, imho.