No advice, but I am struck by how your cabinets look nearly identical to mine in my existing kitchen, down the hardware! (Mine were installed in fall 1989 -- no idea what brand)

Too funny! My house was built in 2000 by an older couple. I am replacing the hardware with the ones in the pic and shuffling the dishwasher and fridge along with some cabinets.

FX180 Antique Mascarello was my first choice when I was thinking of keeping my oak cabinets and changing the counters two years ago. My cabinets are laminate with wall paper sides and not nearly as nice as yours or I would keep my cabinets. I think the counters will look great with your cabinets and I wish I could help more but I will help in voting if anyone posts pictures of various backsplashes.

Still am not done with my kitchen, three years later, sigh. If you want to see a lighter oak and a lot of Antique Mascarello Formica try my Flickr. This photo is from it.

I was surprised that the countertop is darker than I had expected--at the time I bought this was the lightest of the 180fx products. It's not really dark but it's a lot darker than my old offwhite Formica. Your dark appliances will pick up the black tones in the pattern. Consider a paint for backsplash? Put an interesting light fixture over the sink? A piece of art?

Here is a link that might be useful: Florantha's unfinished kitchen

http://www.lowes.com/pd_260587-93840-20-513_0__?productId=3498796&Ntt=stone+backsplash+tile&pl=1&currentURL=%3FNtt%3Dstone%2Bbacksplash%2Btile&facetInfo=

This is the backsplash we had picked out when we were going to go with Antique Mascarello. After getting the quote we decided to go with granite.