Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If your only goal is to get beautiful chicks, then I'd suggest getting a rooster that you think is nice looking and put him with all your hens. When and if you have a hen go broody, give her an assortment of eggs to hatch. You may get some muted browns, as you describe them, but with your assortment of hens, you will also get some nice looking chicks. These will be mutts, not pure bred, but I personally like mutts. If you want chicks that look exactly like their parents, then you have to mate only chickens of that specific breed. It will not matter which rooster you get as far as your hens going broody. Either they will or will not go broody, whether a rooster is there or not.
I would suggest you do not get a solid black or a solid white rooster as those colors may be dominant and all your chicks could all wind up looking like their fathers. And some patterns, like the barring of a barred rock will show up in the first generation offspring but some patterns, like the mille fleur of the Speckled Sussex, is a recessive gene and will not show up in the first generation.
I think a Rhode Island Red rooster with a Barred Rock hen gives striking cockerels but the pullets are not that attractive to me. I'd be willing to bet others feel differently about their appearance. I mention this to point out that the cockerels and pullets in the offspring can look quite a bit different, even with the same parents.
If you have purebred chickens, you can determine what the pullets and cockerels will probably look like with practically any cross in the first generation. That is how you get sex links using speciific breeds. But if you then raise the first generation and cross them with each other, you can get a wide variety in the appearance of the offspring.
I just saw your latest post. I'll post this then respond to your latest.
