Rose Marie - I know what you mean. I saw a lonestar recently in I think McCalls and the prints were so busy and lacked contrast so that you couldn't tell it was a lone star. Why spend all the time piecing if no one can tell what you've made?
I like a lot of the contemporary florals and bold prints, however. But I'm not happy with most of the patterns I see in magazines because they don't look like a quilt so much as a bunch of fabric cut up and sewn back together, without much regard for style. There are patterns using simple squares and rectangles that look very nice, but the magazines are stuffed with mostly mediocre patterns, IMHO.