Design Suggestions - Basement - Carpet or Engineered?

[DrinkMore]

Coming up with a dilema here and not sure what to do about it. Maybe some suggestions will help me.

We have a basement that is being re-done. It is going to be a total of 1,100 sq feet. We decided on a berber carpet that is very thick with a the thickest pad. We are looking at around $3,600/$3,800 for carpet, padding and installation is being covered by our contractor. We felt this would help with several issues..

1 - We have 4 80lb dogs. Berber would hold up very well and not show any traffic or stain patterns due to the design of the carpet itself.
2 - It would make it feel "warmer" down there.
3 - It would be nice walking on it.
4 - Would cut down on the dust (dog/cat hair) and vacuming would be better.

Now the dilema is this - that would be A LOT of white down there. A neutral color but quite a bit. My next alternative would be an engineered wood. This has some drawbacks..

1 - Would not feel soft and cushiony.
2 - Would not cut down on dust (dog/cat hair) and cleaning would be somewhat of a pain.
3 - It's a hard surface.
4 - Costs more. (I get mixed results on this).
5 - Height - the floor will raise the height of the "floor". Space is a premium! I think it would be the same for carpet, if not less?

Now, here are the pluses to the engineered flooring - it would hold up much better than carpet with dogs (granted the dogs won't be down there much - not a high traffic area), and it would allow us to put area rugs/throw carpets where we want for accents. It would allow for a much better color pallete down there than if there was all carpet.

As you can see, this is the dilema. Anyone put engineered down in a basement? What's all involved? I have heard tons of different ways it can be done. FYI - we don't have ANY water leaks or issues. Very little moisture if any. So no problems there.

I am also talking about wood floors, not thos cardboard swift lock floating floor things. I am talking about real wood on top, plywood underneath or however they do it.

Suggestions/Comments welcome!