Carpet is also terrible for allergies and asthma. My house will have fully hard flooring some day. My current carpet is 11 years old. We aren't going to replace it when it comes out in 3 or 4 years. We don't wear shoes in the house, so that's helped keep it in pretty good shape for a light grey carpet.
I'm still undecided as to if I'm going to go laminate, hard wood or simply stained concrete. CA isn't cold so I've got lots of options:>