Picking Paint Colors

I can't pull in a paint store parking lot without getting excited. Actually walking in the store makes me giddy. Oh the possibilities! The colors. The choices.

It's a swift fall to despair though. The colors. The choices. How do you choose?

I'm always optimistic as I walk up to counter thinking of the transformation my room is about to undergo. Sometimes I'm lucky and the first color is a winner. Sometimes I have to make a few trips back. 

A couple weeks ago, I started painting my hallways. They'd been the same color for ten years and I couldn't stand it anymore.

before

after

Now that I've finished most of them, I'm still not sure about the color. It's the same color as the kitchen, Benjamin Moore's Classic Gray. It's very neutral and doesn't shout anything at me when I walk by. On the other hand, it's a bit too plain blending right in with the white trim. We have painters coming in January to do an area on the stairwell that's too high for me to handle. I could have them do a completely different color and then repaint the other areas myself.

Any thoughts? Should I venture back into the world of paint samples? What's your record number of times for painting a single area? :)