If you haven't already, you might want to repost this on the discussion side of this forum..you've posted here to the gallery side, which doesn't get many responses because it is where people post their photos of completed projects.

Can you remove the frame from the medicine cabinet and add your own? We did this with a mirror, and it came out very nice. We recently took some tile out and replaced with beadboard paneling to match our preferred decor a bit better. It's really a short-term fix on a budget, as a total gut is planned in the next 10 years or so. I also painted the blue and pink tiles (they were totem poles) with brown acrylic paints & sealed them to match the brown walls. So, we managed to go from blue, pink & white tiles to brown, white, and still some blue left, but it's better. Maybe you can add some paint accents to pull in your fixture colors into the grand scheme of things? The old tiles:

Honestly, I don't think you, us, or anyone can make that call without putting the actual materials together and looking at them. In general, I certainly don't think that classy white tile will look "cheap" with a taupe-y room. If it's nice tile. But believe me, EVERY white tile, subway, square, whichever, looks different in real life. I've now had to choose subways for two kitchens and white field tile for two bathrooms, and the difference in appearance between them is amazing. In the last bathroom, I was on a super tight budget and tiling all the walls, so I had to choose a cheap tile. The two cheapest (Lowes and HD's subways and 4x4s, by American Olean and, I think, Daltile, but their low-end, big-box-only lines) are very uniform and have glazes that lack any sort of depth or lustre. I just couldn't do it. Interestingly, just a few cents more per tile buys the American Olean field tile with a different surface texture (ever so slightly wavy, which creates a bit of sparkle in the room) and slightly different colored glaze. The "richness" in the look between these 3 tiles, all of which were the same size, shape, and bright white... was incredible. All that is just to illustrate the point that you really gotta see it in person :) That particular bathroom, by the way, has grey-beige walls and a beige, limestone-look tile on the floor. White fixtures, and white tile. I think it looks quite elegant ;) If you want to add a masculine touch, and you want to use the dark medicine cabinet, would you consider doing white tile with a black (or dark brown- whatever matches the cab) accent? You could even run the tile around the walls of the room as wainscotting. Like this, sort of? Or some other way to bring that dark accent in... otherwise I think I would go with the white medicine cabinet... I also agree with you on preferring recessed medicine cabinets!

@cat_ky, it's in the design phase and nothing is built. It's a new home that hasn't started yet. So I don't have a photos to share.