I prefer a lemon drop plain maple top. I even sold the Gibson Deluxe, rather than the Orville Standard.
That's a beauty!
BTW, I had the opportunity to work on some Epi LPs for a local shop and I have to say that the plain top models were much cooler than the flamed tops. The plains felt and looked more "solid". Sound wise though they were about the same.
Here in Brazil maple is very expensive compared to local woods. I don't really like to use maple on my builds unless it's what the customer wants (and pays for it!), but I always try to disuade them to use our local tonefull (and beautifull) timbers.
Any type of figured maple here is priced outrageously high.
And I really don't care much anymore about the beauty of the flame.
When I first started to build, wood figured and natural character was all that I thought about. I was always worried about the looks of the grain mostly for aesthetically reasons. I wanted to build everything more on a "Alembic" type of approach, with lots of different woods and natural colours.
Now, I'm more and more leaning towards colourfull tints and dyes and plastic pickguards and metal parts(not chrome exclusive).