Really? No opinions or pics of what it might look like to stack cabs in some areas and build the wall out over the uppers in other areas? Anyone?? It's okay to tell me it will look stupid and suggest another alternative :).

I don't think it would look odd, but, I'm not sure I would do the furring and upper stacked cabs in the places that you mentioned. I would put the upper stacks on the refrig wall only so it looked more uniform, so that it looks almost like a pantry wall, then do the furring with molding on the long wall.

IMO...it would look stupid (sorry, you asked!) Either you go for the variable height, variable depth look as in the picture you've shown above or you do the stacked all the way to the ceiling look. You can't do both. The whole charm of the variable height/depth thing is the skyline type of top. If the shorter ones have a soffit on top of them, you'll lose that. And, if I'm picturing this correctly, you'll have a problem figuring out how to manage the crown molding on the uppermost cabinets where it hits the soffit on the sides of it.

FWIW

I would not create the soffit idea, if I'm understanding it correctly. It would be spending extra money to do something that most people try to get rid of, if they can.

I also think this could create trim / crown moulding issues to do this.

I agree with melissastar. I think a lot of people try to get rid of soffits and I can't imagine combining them with the varying heights of cabinets. (I love the varying heights of my cabinets and don't clean up there--guess I ought to get one of the tall people in the household to do that occasionally. I'm told it's a good idea to cover the area with newspaper or wax paper and then just replace it occasionally)

What Melissastar said.

Thank you for the honest feedback. I have to admit, I was thinking it might look silly but I was holding out hope that maybe someone would say, "yes! that will look great!" and then post some awesome pics showing just that ;). Oh well. Now what? Our builder recommended just building the cooktop cabinetry up to the ceiling. Would that look okay? Or what about stacking cabinets over the ovens, cooktop and fridge, but leaving the rest of the cabinet tops exposed?

I don't like the variable height tops look, even without the soffit. Maybe that's just me though. Can you price it out with uppers to the ceiling to really know the cost? Maybe it won't be as much as you fear. Or you could cut back a little some place else