How much space is there b/w the ceilings & the top of the current wall cabinets? Is it exactly the same all around? I.e., is your ceiling height the same throughout the kitchen? If it is, you're in the minority as most ceiling heights vary by an inch or more from one side of the kitchen to the other.

Why does this matter? Because if you have cabinets that go completely to the ceiling, any deviations will be noticeable (you'll have a gap in some places but not others or a bigger gap in some places).

OTOH, if you put up at least 2-piece crown molding with "filler" as one piece, you can adjust the filler to accommodate the difference in height while keeping the "decorative" piece(s) the same all around and ceiling height differences will not be noticeable.

If your ceilings are like most and not the same height in the entire kitchen then...

If you have at least 16" or so of empty space right now, then you can probably go with the 12" cabinets + 4" of crown molding (crown molding too short will also show differences.)

If you only have a 12" gap at the shortest ceiling height, I would think about it b/f putting in the 12" cabinets.

If most of the gap is >= 12" but there is a shorter gap of We used 3-piece crown molding for our cabinets and adjusted the middle piece for the ceiling height differences...which is over 1" at one point in our kitchen...and you cannot tell by looking. I had to get up there and measure to find out!

The "Stock-S" is the filler piece that was adjusted to accommodate ceiling height differences. (The top design in the pic above is the crown molding on top of the cabinets; the bottom design is the light rail on the bottom of the cabinets.)

I think I'm probably just repeating something Buehl included. If you only have 12", even if you do have level ceilings and a full 12" all the way around, a 12" cabinet without molding will look jammed in there...And I think it's difficult to make those stacked cabinets look right with various width cabinets...They end up looking such different shapes, since the proportions change with the size. You'll have some that look about square, and some that are squatty and wide. Usually those stacked cabinets take some prior careful planning to get the design to look right.

My top shelves are pretty hard to reach even though I have full-height doors that I can open from standing on the floor. They would be really difficult to use if you had to get up high enough to open a separate door. Although, a lot of people must be willing to do that, since those stacked cabinets are shown in a lot of photos.

I vote for no cabinets on the range wall and a large wood hood there, perhaps a hearth style hood.

Well, I can see I'm going to be measuring things tonight!