In my opinion - there is no law that says that a hunter's star quilt/block HAS to be high contrast - but that seems to be what is usual.
If you wanted to go with the low-level contrast look - I think the pink and print and green and print blocks work - and I would eliminate the white and print unit - because that looks out of place to me.
Just wondering - do you trim/check your half square units before incorporating them into your blocks?
Many of us have learned to make them slightly oversized and trim them down to get better results. I have also learned to check to see if - for example - that the four HST units sewn together and the squares I am going to sew them together are the same size.
I can ease and stretch with the best of them - but the results usually look nicer if the adjoining pieces fit together smoothly. It is also much easier to press the entire block then.