I'm mostly using hand-me-downs and cheap Ikea stuff, so my insight is limited, but the things that came to mind for me:
-Function over form. I've eaten meals with 'minimalist' cutlery, that was for example too flat (barely any bend to the fork for example), had fork tips that were too short, or most annoyingly, spoons that lacked volume because they had no depth. Make sure they're actually good for eating.
-For this reason I've often preferred the old-fashioned stuff; they're usually more adequately sized IMO. If you dig around you can probably find something similar.
-If you want them to dishwash properly, make sure the stems arent too thick to fit in the slots in your cutlery basket in your dishwasher. This is for me the main problem with many of my older cutlery; they're often too wide at the tail end.
The downside is that they used to be thicker for a reason; ergonomics are usually better on thicker stems for me.
-Quantity. One of the reasons I don't have fancy cutlery is that I'd rather have 'many' than better ones. I'm one of those people who uses a lot of spoons in food prep... IMO you want to have a generous amount (especially spoons), and as a result pricing isn't entirely irrelevant.
