I don't know why everyone wants them. I do personally quite like them, but then I quite like that 'clean', modern feel in appliances and kitchens generally. However, a kitchen has to go with the house. Unless very, very carefully designed, an all-steel kitchen with granite countertops (which I'm told are a pain in the backside with regards to staining and cracking anyway) and cherry panels would just look silly in most old houses. There are ways to integrate modern design into an old house but it tends to be of the difficult and expensive variety...



Built-in cooker&oven, fridge, washing machine and microwave. There is technically also a built-in fridge, but it doesn't work and didn't when we moved in, thus the house was let to us as not having a fridge.

The only ones that came with the (rented) house are the oven and the cooker, which are thus not mine. The oven is stainless steel and looks really nice, but it doesn't heat evenly which annoys me. It's electric, not gas, so it really should. I hate the cooker. It's about a million years old, judging by its 70s dark brown design, electric (I hate electric cooking with a passion), and impossible to clean properly.
The others are all ours, and of the cheap&functional sort, as when bought we were totally broke and we still don't have the money to spring for fancy appliances. The fridge is probably going to want replacing this year and will be replaced with something equally cheap and cheerful unless I find a really good deal.

Ooooh....you got a few hours? I am in fact the type who thinks about these things
The actual style of it would depend on the house that contained it. Like I said above, I do like modern kitchens, but if it didn't suit the house I'd not try and enforce a modern kitchen on it. The size of it and the work triangle would be important to me. Our current kitchen is quite large, for the size of the house and building traditions in the area, but it's badly laid out. I want to be able to get between sink, cooker and fridge with just one step, and without having to go around anything - currently the kitchen table is in the way. Space for a kitchen table is good, though; that allows you to make it a social space.
It would be at least partially open, so that I could interact with those in the living space of the house. I like kitchens with 'islands' that have either a work surface or a cooker integrated into them.
Appliances wise - the looks would depend on the kitchen, but as I am an enthusiastic cook I would be prepared to spring for quality here, as well as some more obscure kitchen equipment most people wouldn't use a lot. Two ovens would be good, too.

It certainly can. My parents, who had their entire house designed from the ground up by an architect and then built by a contractor about 22 years ago, have a white kitchen. The whole house is airy and light and very modern of design, and the white, all-artificial material (no wood or steel, the only natural thing in there are the pale grey stone floortiles) kitchen works very well in it. I've heard my mum say recently she'd like to do it up, but that's more to do with it being 22 years old and starting to look quite worn than her not liking the design any more.

Personal taste and comfort, certainly, unless you knew you would be selling very soon (within a year or two). So many people just rip out and replace a kitchen anyway, it's not worth compromising on your comfort while you live there.

Not a home design fad as such, but the infernal English habit of having carpet in a bathroom. That should be illegal. *hates*

I don't really follow this kind of thing, but I'm seeing a lot of things with large, open spaces filled with light, natural materials. I like that, it's the kind of environment I do well in.

I'm not sure it counts, but granite countertops - loved the idea of it initially, then realised how expensive and hard to care for they were.

Ha! Good question. Really not sure.

The space. It's so much larger than my last kitchen. It's as big as the kitchen in the shared student house I lived in for 3 years, and I was sharing that with 5 other people - and this one's all mine! Well, mine and the boyfriend's. But he doesn't cook much.