Your kitchen is beautiful, I can already tell :) And I LOVE your full-size fridge/freezer!
First off, do NOT feel bad about the formica. There are a few ways to make formica look current, and it is crazy-functional. My 20 X 20 home kitchen has granite countertops, 9 ft island and all, have had them for the last 8 years. My newly built "beach" cottage kitchen 14 X 14, smaller island, has formica...and to my surprise I LOVE it! I love it's function, I love that it's warmer-feeling than stone, I love the price, I love its simplicity, and I even love the look.
I chose a surface by Formica called Oiled Soapstone that I had made thinner than standard formica. You can see in the attachments, it is a pretty decent fakeout for soapstone, but i also love that doesn't stand out so much...lets the overall space speak for itself. There was also a marble fakeout in their higher-end that looked pretty good, but I decided I wasn't going to try to make it look like stone, but instead just embrace that it is 'laminate' and I'm proud of it ;) I decided to use tile backsplash instead of the 4" formica backsplash [I almost embraced as well], simply because I prefer the function of it (hate when water splashes on painted walls) and I liked the look of my cheap subway tiles with gray grout so much that I wanted to highlight it.
You can take a peak of my photos below
As for your seams, I might run the formica all the way from the corner to the stove, with a seam 2 feet from the side wall, then 12 feet from that point (the sink will be dropped into this piece), and then a seam wher the next piece begins to get that extra 2 ft covered to the other side wall. So 2 seams, each 2 ft from the walls on each side of the sink. I think seams far away from water is best when it comes to laminate, and they will be in a less obvious location (not so front-and-center). My seam is (I think) 2 ft from my corner. It is tight, and I don't even notice it! I think keeping it away from water is key, and you may be placing dishes to dry where you have it planned now/where piece of wood is in your pic. I wouldn't do butcher block or anything else to break up your perimeter countertop, especially with how funtional/low maintenance formica is and how nice/streamlined the counters will look with just one surface. And wood is not low maintenance, in my opinion.Just my two cents.
And finally, I say love your kitchen for it's own style, who cares about trends. I did my traditional cream perimeter/wood island style kitchen at home 8 years ago and stiil love it. I am lucky enough that I got to do my white beach kitchen in my cottage and love that too. Really can't say though that I prefer one over the other, they both give me diferent feelings: one warm and cozy, one light an airy. I think you accomplished building a space that is warm and cozy, just as it sounds like you set out to do. Enjoy!