LOVED your opening lines! Yes, this is a dilemma for me, too. It is time for me to make a quilt for my 20-yr-old son so I had him look at some patterns. It would not be his first choice of how to spend his free time, but I told him if he wanted a quilt then he would have to pick. Not going to spend a small fortune and time making a quilt and then him not really like it. So, after perusing the magazines he finally decided on the Labyrinth pattern.
Here is a link for some pics of quilts using this pattern:
http://www.google.com/search?q=labyr...w=1024&bih=690
Long link...hope it works for you! If not, just google "labyrinth quilt pattern". Hope you can decide on one!