I started playing DF while having Mayday's graphic pack installed, after a while I discovered a world I absolutely loved. Loads of Obsidian, magma pipes, loads of sand, some area's also with flux, but then no iron near. And because I used Mayday's I was used to having only the "layer" stone as building material.
Was I in for a surprise when I started playing that same world on a newly installed completely vanilla DF.
My living quarters looked like a circus... Black (obsidian), white (alunite), yellow (orthoclase), green (Olivine), blue (microcline) doors/cabinets... ect. ect. The only thing that had normal colour were the beds made from wood.
Now I play DF without any graphic pack, but with the reaction_whatever.txt I borrowed from the Mayday graphic pack to make all stones economic.
Right now I dont care about 35 different types of stone since now all construction is done with the stone I want them to use Obsidian.
200+ Cabinets, coffers, tables, thrones, coffins, doors.
Not to mention all the Outside Walls, Outside Floors, Ramps, Stairs, Fortifications, Bridges, Mechanisms, Floodgates, all workshops.
When I am in a good/creative mood and I want coloured floors I pause the game, through z menu activate the colour (stone type) I need, build all the floors/walls I need and then deactivate it again before cancelling pause.
So yeah, many stones might look like as if you never need it.
BTW a little offtopic maybe
Is there a way to make the smoothened floor tiles and constructed floor tiles "colour background and black +" instead of "black background with coloured +".
Right now with for example microcline floors you have "black background and blue +", but I would prefer my floors to have blue background and black +" or maybe remove the + alltogether.