Waterlox is EXTREMELY orange. If you use any oil-based product at all, the wood will be much darker and much more orange than it is unfinished. I too actually prefer the color of unfinished white oak and unfinished maple better than their finished colors. But you cannot maintain the natural color and look with typical finishes. You would need a water-clear, water-based finish. Get some scraps of both woods (or at least same species) and test the colors of any finish you're considering. For floors, I think Bona makes some durable, completely clear finishes. For the cabinets...I don't know. I'm in the same boat, wanting a clear (not amber, yellow, or orange) finish for some oak cabinets I have stripped and chemically aged. Yet, for kitchen cabinets, you need a durable, protective, highly cleanable finish. I have not personally found any of the clear, water-based polys to be durable enough for kitchen cabinets. There are specialty products used by professional finishers (like Faux Effects/Aqua) that are supposed to be extremely durable, but I have not tried any yet. For the kitchen cabinets, I would consider finding a finish professional to spray on a durable water-clear lacquer. I have done lots of wood finishing and normally would do it all myself, but water-based products that are fairly durable don't apply nicely with brushes or rollers. I do have a HVLP sprayer, but I don't want to deal with any overspray in my home or even my garage.

It's easy to get a perfect finish on painted furniture when you spray it, but it's true it is hard to get it perfect without spraying. I would stain them if they were mine, just because maple looks great stained and stained furniture is easier to take care of, but this probably depends on what else is around in the room as well. If you stain, you want to stain, let dry, apply one coat sanding sealer and then at least one coat of poly. There are water based finishes on the market now but I don't like any of them. Lacquer can only be sprayed so. You want to lightly sand after the sealer coat because applying any first coat of finish on stained wood will raise the grain and make the surface very rough. The easiest way to apply stain is with a staining pad. Using gel stain or not won't make a difference to your wrist.

You have to experiment to come up with the look you want. I'm planning to experiment soon to achieve a similar driftwood finish for one of my oak bathroom vanities. RH has different products with variations on that look; some are reclaimed elm, some are unfinished ("lightly sanded") reclaimed pine, some are oak with a "weathered finish." Some ideas to get you started... No oil-based varnishes or traditional oil finishes can be used, because all impart a yellow or amber color. The reclaimed pine is a grayish color caused by oxidation. Ferrous sulfate and iron buff are chemical stains that can duplicate that process and produce a grayish color. Washing soda or even baking soda can lightly gray or "weather" oak a bit. The "weathered" oak RH finish looks to me like gray pigment is lodged in the large pores of the wood, just like with any whitewash or limewash finish, but with gray pigment instead of white. I would try a flat, waterbased paint in a similar shade of gray, apply and wipe off. Rubio Monocoat might also achieve a similar look, in a grayish color like Gris Beige. Monocoat is so matte the wood looks unfinished, but does have some decent protection. If you use any other protective topcoat, it would have to be dead flat, crystal clear, and applied very thin so there's no obvious film build. One of the RH pieces is said to have a wax finish; that's pretty easy, just add artist oil pigments to wax. I'd start with white and tint it to light gray with a bit of green undertone to cancel any warm tones naturally in the wood. (Of course, no other topcoat would be compatible with the wax.)

INSL-X (original makers of Cabinet Coat) has a nice product called Aqua Lock. Available at Benjamin Moore stores. Although you never know what store has what product on the shelves these days. Call first. It can be tinted but it's intended as a primer so you do have to do a top coat. Ask the pros at the counter. https://media.benjaminmoore.com/WebServices/prod/assets/stage/datasheets/TDS_AQ-0XXX/20190917%20AQ-0XXX%20TDS%20EN.pdf