I just wrote a nice first post and lost it!!
Oh well, I have been trying to find a way to stain a maple floor dark. Most of the pro's I talked too wouldn't do it. The others would but didn't have any experience. After a first attempt that came out looking very amature, swirls everywhere and lines from the drum sander, I proposed we sand the floor by hand staying in line with the boards. This removes the screen marks and lines from the drum sander, only introducing new ones that go with the floor boards. This was done with 100grit pole sander, getting right up to the baseboard. This is the only way to make sure that the swirl marks are completely gone and the color is consistent across the entire room right to the baseboard. After you think you sanded the whole floor, I waited until dark and setup a halogen light about 30 feet away from the room. Getting down on the floor you can catch the sheen of the sanding and find anything you missed. It is really that hard to see the swirl marks. It takes more time than most pros will care to spend. I went back over all the edges and still found more work that needed a second pass.
I have to feel bad for the guy refinishing my floor, he spent a lot of time on first attempt, palm sanding, screening.. But the trick to maple is that you can't have a single sand mark you don't want, they will all show with stain. We are using Bona Drifast Rosewood and Traffic top coat. The analogy is like a fingerprint on glass. You can't see it at all until it gets dusted. Then it stands out like a neon sign. If you miss one sand mark, you'll find it when you stain. Or if you use two different sanding techniques, palm sand the edge, drum sand the center of the room, it will look completely different in color between them.
Here is a link to a pic I took with my cell phone. This is right after stain, no poly. The dark area was a test water pop that was way too dark. Maybe a lighter stain would work with water. In that area I also used another color stain that was too orange for my taste. The far right and left will have cabinets so it helped to have some test areas.
The only hitch I had, was working on your hands and knees sanding 300sq feet you can work up a sweat. We found 4-5 "sweat" popped marks where the stain took too much from drips of sweat. These were spot sanded out and touched up with a rag.
http://picasaweb.google.com/mgsully/Floor?feat=directlink