I love your top, givio! I think all of your changes and your colors are wonderful.
ddtrina, I used to piece without trimming units, and things still went together well. Now that I'm used to doing it, I think it does make it easier to join units, because you don't have excess fabric hanging over when you're sewing seams. You can get an idea of how your units are trending by checking a few. I didn't do much trimming of 4-patches or tri-recs and could easily see when one of those needed trimming, but quite a few of my QSTs had a side or two that were too large, so I am checking all of those. Do whatever works for you!