This is such an interesting thread. It's almost a discussion about art quilts versus more traditional quilts. I love the design and machine quilting part of the process, don't enjoy the piecing part so much. I love to see the quilts that have a lot of machine quilting on it. To me that's as interesting as the piecing. That being said, I'm making a quilt for our bed and I probably will restrain myself from doing too much machine quilting so the quilt isn't so stiff. My husband disagrees, he thinks I should quilt it up.
For the wallhangings I make I do 'quilt it up' and that has gone over very well with everyone who has seen them.