If someone says they want a checkerboard, I believe them and make them a checkerboard. Maybe she has visions of playing chess or checkers on the quilt. Just because it seems too simplistic to you, it doesn't mean that's not what she really wants and envisions using.
You can always find the challenge or new thing about this quilt in another aspect -- the quilting (free motion quilt a different checker motif in each square) or the binging (use a flange or some other treatment that is new to you) or the border treatment (do an appliqued vine or something interesting in the piecing of the border).