I agree with LDA, quartz is a great counter top, its durable, safe and very easy to maintain, especially for a high traffic kitchen.
In most cases if a customer is after the look of natural stone than they go for granite, because quartz does not have the look of natural stone like granite does.
Other then that, that is great choice for counter top, and one more thing, don't get the square edges not matter what you chose, they tend to chip.

Good luck

Quartz is a great material - in some ways more durable than most stone, resisting staining and scratches. Plus it's more eco friendly :-). There should be no problem at all with maintaining a light quartz!

Just put quartz (Cambria Bradford) in my kitchen. It is great. very easy to keep clean. Had dark green counter tops before and felt they always had crumbs showing no matter how often I wiped them, think black would create same problem so I'd go for a medium color tone

All very good Cambria colors you've thought about. My first choice for your kitchen would be Snowden because it's bright and has flecks of your cabinet color, then Windermere. Even though quartz is very low maintenance if the white still concerns you I would pick Windermere or a similar medium color tone like jck910 pointed out.

I think it will be OK.

we've been reasearching this ourselves and found out that quartz (engineered) is the BEST there is as far as durablility! :)

I would not allow marker pens anywhere near light counters so maybe your builder is right in black as a choice.

Are you kidding! There is nothing better! It's pricey. In almost all cases it costs more than stone, but there is nothing more durable.