Something to consider when you have a vaulted open concept kitchen is that if you decide to do painted two tone palette on your cabinets, it affects the rest of your house. Because you're introducing white/off white which is not present in other parts of your house, you may need to paint your window casings, baseboards and other mouldings the same colour to create a coordinated look.
In terms of your dilemma, I would suggest painting both your upper and lower cabinets all white/off white because your countertops are fairly dark and your backsplash tiles are really detailed and rich. To still get the look without it looking visually noisy, you could paint or even better stain your island dark brown to coordinate with your backsplash tiles (the big box stores sell this stain colour as espresso).
Here's an example that has a lot of the elements of your kitchen vision. http://houzz.com/photos/600618

Do not do paint lower cabs a different color stay in the ivory with a chocolate glaze, on all cabinets. Backsplash very nice. Walls should be a deeper ivory. Get samples try first.

Use bronze pulls.

There is a long, detailed discussion about painting kitchen cabinets here: https://www.houzz.com/magazine/kitchen-cabinet-color-should-you-paint-or-stain-stsetivw-vs~23429308

Thanks for the great tips Clay and others.
My next dilema is the oak trim above the cabinets, which is the same as windows and baseboards throughout the living room kitchen.
Do you think it would look dumb if I left that oak trim the same so I don't have to re-stain/paint all trim ( as pointed out by Clay )
So the cabinets would be off white, the island espresso and the trim remains oak.
What is not in my pictures is an oak staircase off the kitchen.
I'm feeling OAKverwhelmed.