I fear that I wasn't clear in my earlier post. The choice I was thinking about was not having a dining room or not, but having a separate dining room vs. an open plan. Here is an example: the condo we came very close to buying.
View attachment 9553
It has a dining room, but it is open to the kitchen and living room so that the cook can participate in the party while preparing dinner. The island hides any mess in the kitchen.
A drawback of this floorplan is that the guest bedroom opens directly onto the dining room, but we were going to use that room as a study anyway...
Edit
Rats, some lines were missing from floorplan. Replaced it.