I was under the impression that if you build a wall, fortification, floor or staircase out of stone it will be 'rough', but if you build it out of stone blocks it will be of higher quality - however, when I do this and highlight the construction it says its a 'rough (name of stone) block staircase'. I thought that crafted blocks have no quality modifier so do not affect the quality of the construction, also I know constructions cannot be smoothed. How can I produce higher quality constructions? Is it the architect dorf's skill that affects it?
A block staircase says '[stone] block up/down staircase' when k'd over. If it says 'rough [stone] block up/down staircase' then you selected the wrong thing off the materials list.
Constructions are only ever as good as the blocks that comprise them, as architecture is not required to construct them. If you have flux or obsidian as a layer stone, use those. Flux stone has a value of 2 and obsidian 3, compared to 1 for every stone that isn't an ore.
(I'd really love the option to engrave block stone walls (or even the stone blocks themselves), as it would provide a better incentive to make rock blocks. Right now they're kind of useless -- they're worth a little more than plain rocks and you gain the ability to store them in bins and to make asheries and screwpumps, but there's
nothing else you can do with them.)