How much more costly is it to source your counters yourself rather than go through your builder? I am thinking its probably a pretty bad idea to get your granite through the builder. The 3 colors you have mentioned are all pretty low level granites and not terribly expensive as far as granites go, yet I am sure they are probably charging you a lot more than they would cost if you sourced them yourself. I would also never let someone choose my slab for me, especially with colors than can vary so much.

My suggestion would be to ask your builder for an allowance for counters and do them yourself. If you can't afford to get the granite you want immediately then I would install a cheap formica counter and save up for the granite you want. This offers a number of advantages over just getting the granite your builder is offering:

1) You might save money- If you could pocket the difference between the allowance and the formica you could be well on your way to having the money for the granite you want.

2) Its not as wasteful as getting the builder granite- Sure the builder granite isn't great but it would still be wasteful to have granite counters installed and then just trash them in a couple of years.

3) You can avoid the potential damage that would result when removing the builder granite- You said you are getting builder grade cabinets, so I would be worrisome of removing the granite in a few years. You never know if the cabinets would be able to withstand that. If not, then the whole process may end up costing you more.

4) Your kitchen will be more unique than the rest of the houses in the development- The three colors you mentioned are all lower level granites. I don't want to sound disparaging, but in my experience with semicustom home builders a lot of buyers don't know the difference between granites and are tricked into buying builder grade granite colors that are not particularly interesting or original because they just know the buzzword granite. By doing granite yourself you will be able to get a color that is a lot more interesting and stands out from the rest of the homes in your development. It will be a lot less cookie-cutter.

I agree with realism - you should ask for a credit and go find some yourself that you really love.

If you can't/don't want to do that, I'd pick the St. Cecelia. I think it will look best with the dark cabinets. It can have some gold, but I've never seen any that I thought "GAH, so much gold!!!"

Uba Tuba is dark green with slight flecks of gold and can be very beautiful with the right colored cabinets (e.g., natural cherry - see badergal's kitchen for a wonderful example), but I think it will look terrible with the dark cabinets.

The Caledonia looks the 'cheapest' to me. It screams 'builder's grade'. It looks a little boring and I don't think it will warm the space the was the St. Cecelia can.