I usually stay within inches of the bottom (just far enough away that my pony doesn't stir anything up), but I am one with the non-silting kicks, etc. Sometimes I'll take in the high view (Morrison Spring's lower cavern is quite a sight from the ceiling), but I'd much rather be looking at all the fine little details. If I were drifting along a coral reef, I'd adjust, of course, but where I dive, lower is better for me.
Of course, when I'm on a cattle boat with a bunch of students (OW through Rescue and beyond), diving horizontally along the bottom is a recipe for being kicked in the head by the racing school of silt-walkers. They fly along with no situational awareness, usually a few feet from the bottom and rarely less than a 45° angle from horizontal.
I find it sadly fascinating that it took less than half a dozen dives to help a buddy of mine perfect her buoyancy and horizontal trim, and yet I routinely see Rescue divers and above who would be first in the draft if the navy ever needed silt-stirring specialists to cloak dive operations. I've heard people told routinely to "stay a few feet off the bottom so you don't stir the silt up", but that makes barely a smidgen of difference if your fin wash is directed right into the silt.
