Have you actually seen or felt any of the hardware you're considering or just taking your GC's word on it? I had my heart set on the Aubrey pulls so drove 65 miles to a store to put my own hands and eyes on them before I shelled out my hard earned cash, which, btw, I recommend doing with ANY hardware you're considering. I was impressed by the quality of the pulls and knobs RH displays on the little boards. (I was disappointed to not be able to rummage around on the huge wall of hardware like they had years ago.) I bought small samples of the Aubrey in polished nickel and polished chrome, a couple of other pulls DH liked, and a couple of different knobs. They all felt solid, heavy, and very well made. I went on to order samples of a few other pulls from different companies when DH didn't initially like my choice of the Aubrey. Compared to the other pulls, the Aubrey felt completely smooth on the handle part and heavier. Some of the other pulls were rougher and you could feel a seam on the handle from the mold or whatever they use to form them. Even though DH didn't like the style of the pull at first, he liked the quality very much. In the end, I chose three sizes of the Aubrey pulls (no knobs) in polished nickel. Of the 100 pulls I ordered (bought many more than I needed as I wanted the flexibility of changing my mind on sizes and then returned the rest), only one any had sort of little flaw in the nickel. Having read that some people in the past had trouble with the Aubrey screws, I sent a pull with the screws to my cab maker ahead of installation so he could decide if I needed to buy different screws. He said the ones I was sent would work fine on my cabs. He had never used RH hardware before, but was impressed with the quality and appearance after he installed them. It's only been a few months, but I'm having zero problems with the pulls. Well, except maybe my obsessive need to walk around wiping the small finger prints off so that they shine. :-) Look at any pull you're interested in IRL. Touch them. Hold them. Hold them up to your cabs to test the projection and appearance. Good luck! Here is a link that might be useful: More pics on this thread

I went through a similar dilemma myself. I have cream cabinets and a black island and had my heart set on ORB hardware. It really looked bad with the black (to my eye anyways) so I went with brushed nickel. I'm really happy with the end result. I think so long as you have some contrast between the ORB and your dark wood it should be fine, but try it out on a sample cab somewhere to see how it would look.

If you have a traditional or mid-mod look going, check out Reuvenation's pulls. We've ordered from both them and some of the lower cost competitors, and their stuff is a notch above for cabinet hardware (particularly if it's a latch or has moving pieces; less of an issue for pulls, but still some nice ideas and designs to look at!) It's pricey, though....

There are all kinds of high-end finishes that can be done with covering wood holes, and it usually involves an artistic level of painting with multiple colors to match the grain in a faux-painting style. For just a solid color, there's not much you can do to hide it if you are just going to do a wood filler.