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[T600]

Then get out of the habit. Be creative. it doesn't hurt. 

And cistern = reservoir for all purposes in DF.

I think I might have a hard time doing that, because captain ducks way seems so.. efficient and easy to set up you know? Like the center staircase method is really effective.

Also, I am getting a little side tracked but do you all use wider hallways in your forts so you don't get dwarf traffic backups?

I personally just want to be able to build a creative fort for once, all my forts have been just reincarnations of the last ones now that I look back on it.

[Kazang]

I've found that emptying a water/drowning trap is the tricky part.

I've settled on just using a manual pump or 2.  It's not very elegant but it's the only option that doesn't take massive channels going everywhere and limiting space for other things.

Oh and make sure there is some kind of gap or bridge between the bulk of the water and the main part of your fortress.  Just today a hydra fell into my drowning pit, swam around and destroyed every flood gate it could sending water everywhere.
I now have a soggy fortress and a hydra trapped in a pit.

[Djohaal]

I used to have that problem of uncreative fort project until I managed to master most aspects of the game. Once it gets less difficult to manage a proper fortress efficiency stops being a concern and you can give yourself the luxury of doing inneficient projects that look pretty.

On passages, use two-wide corridors everywhere but mining areas or other small acess stuff. For major passages use 3-wide.

[Retro]

Try designing all your rooms and tunnels using the mouse only and still make them two or three tiles wide at any given point, and avoid having any room being exactly beside or aligned with another. Gives a more natural look. From there, consider making structures with a purpose that may not be an in-game one (ie. a gaming hall or an island in a lake for meditation or something, tooled towards whatever aesthetic theme you want).

As for a water trap, if you haven't already embarked, try and find a map right where an aquifer biome meets a non-aquifer biome. Being able to access one without living in and breaking through one is a delight and is especially useful for basically any water-related project.

[crimsonkage]

While making a Drowning chamber / entrance defense trolls can't break in, I noticed something. Floodgates in 2010 do indeed get blocked by stuff from opening, but if  its a floodchamber and when the water reaches the gate it pushes the blockage out of the way and lets the gate close.

[o_O[WTFace]]

I would recommend considering a fort next to a cold/freezing ocean.  If you find one that freezes for at least a season or so you can potentially dig through it and throw around sourced water with several Z levels of pressure.  And also, ice is amusing.  I once had a glob (I think?) made of "unknown material" that crashed the game when you looked at it in Z stocks menu.  Each spring it turned into a black square in the middle of the ocean and each fall it re-froze into ice. 

Also, be aware of the awesomeness of using bridges to control water flow.  They take fewer mechanisms, fewer rocks, and atom smash items and small creatures out of their way when closing.