Online resources and books can help out immensely with design ideas, but nothing compares to actually touring a few kitchens for the hands-on experience. The PDX Street of Dreams has been a great place for my DW and I to do just that. 
The homes are very high end (and often over the top), but you can get a real sense of how various designs, materials and gadgets would work. One of our guidelines was to have a few high-end features in the kitchen, and this is the place to get exposed to them.
For instance, our back splash design came from this kitchen:
Here is ours...
Not exactly the same (wouldn't want that) but definitely a spin off.
We were willing to go with both painted and stained cabinetry, because we saw it here first - now it's obviously everywhere.
Now were working on our home theater, basing our design on pictures we too while on touring a number of them at PDX.
