Light orange peel is a common texture and barely noticeable. Like Darzy said, it helps hide sheetrock tape and imperfections. The only time I have heard of people trying to get rid of it is when they do batten board wainscot and want to make the wall look more flat like a board. The texture is not even dated - most new houses have a light texture on the walls.

It is great you got the popcorn removed. I want to do that - I am just not sure what I will find underneath as drywall repair is not my thing.

PS...I too had the popcorn ceiling removed throughout the entire house. It wasn't a smooth and pretty ceiling under the popcorn so we had a sheetrock guy do a light orange peel to match the walls. But, if you thought removing popcorn was messy...OMG. They have to use a special sprayer to put the "mud" on the ceiling. Then, "knock down" the little tips of the spray stuff with a tool of some sort. Then, they have to do a screen type sander when it's dry to make it look like the light orange peel effect. There will be white dust everywhere! If you do that option, be sure to close your air vents because for a long time we had white dust coming out of our heat/air vents! It's for sure not a DIY project. You need a good sheetrock/drywall person that knows what they are doing.

YW.. If you want to save money, go ahead and do the light orange peel. If you paint the ceiling in a flat finish, you won't have any light reflection off the orange peel and it will almost look smooth to you anyway.