The grill on the Auteur does have a cathedral look now that you mention it! I do love the look of the Auteur, it's my fav looking ZMF. Looks do play a part in the overall ownership experience, imo. Obviously sound quality is paramount, but if you have two headphones that both sound good, looks can be the thing that pushes you over the edge to one vs the other. I haven't seen Zeos' review of the Auteur so not sure which wood he had. That dark stained maple in the ad looks nice though!
As for tubes, dark, and too much of a good thing, I worried about that as well when starting my tube journey. Thankfully that hasn't been much of an issue. I think tubes in general get stereotyped as warm, gooey, slow, etc. But a good modern tube amp with the right tubes can rival a good solid state amp in speed, transparancy, and overall tonality. Depending on the specific amp and tubes used, yes you can definitely make it too warm, but that's a very specific case by case discussion. Amps like the Kenzie and Pendant from Ampsandsound, the Feliks Echo 2, and the DNA Sonnet 1 are all tube amps i've used to great sucess with my ZMFs. Even the Atticus on my Kenzie on the 300ohm tap isn't overly dark or rolled off. Quite the opposite surprisingly! It's the most airy and thunderous i've heard the Atticus to date. I even discussed that with Justin from Ampsandsound. I was expecting the Atticus/Kenzie 300ohm tap to be too warm, but he said no, a lower dampening factor for the ZMF drivers actually lets them breath a bit, giving them good treble and mid presence. And that's what I heard. When going to the 32ohm tap the Atticus' bass got tighter, but lost some of it's fullness, and the treble and overall airiness seemed to fade, giving a smokier, hazier sound. The Feliks Echo 2 was also a really nice match for both the Atticus and Auteur. The one tube amp that did make the Atticus a bit too muddy was my Bottlehead Crack with speedball. My VC and Auteur loved it as it mellowed the top end nicely. But the Atticus just didn't sound right, too thick and muddy. I'm thinking different tubes could rectify that but I didn't try, so can't say for sure. The Pendant from Ampsandsound is very solid state like, and responds to tube rolling wonderfully. For those coming from solid state to tubes, and have the budget, it's a great option. And the Atticus sings on it!