I try to stay away from Y seams, if possible. I inherited a Grandmother's flower garden my Mom had started and I've got the "flowers" done and need to sew them with the background, and I have a real hard time getting motivated to work on it.
I don't mind doing the occasional Y seam, but having a quilt that is nothing but Y seams is not something I find that enjoyable.
I use to hate square in a square, until I stopped trying to do them "covered corners" method. Now I cut the inner square to size and sew overisize tirangles to it, then trim that down to the correct size.