I think a lot of it has to do with how much actual quilting goes into the quilt. The dense, free motion quilting that seems to be popular these days can make a quilt feel quite stiff instead of soft. I made a quilt for a kid's organization once & they requested very dense quilting because the quilts would be washed so much. After I finished quilting it I found it to be so very, very different from my usual quilts. It was almost like you couldn't even feel the fabric & all you felt was the quilting.