We have one, but it is not central to the room - the lounges are in an L shape tucked into the corner of the room and it fits nicely into the open space in front of them, but still leaves plenty of room for schools, dancing, floor puzzles or whatever may be happening in the rest of the room.

It does get used as a dumping ground, but there is nothing that 'lives' on the table - ie when the house is tidy it is empty. There are big drawers underneath, but they open towards the lounge and honestly I frequently forget they are there so stuff doesn't get put in it.

There are some minor marks on the edges but the table has rounded edges (so we haven't had many accidents) and it is a large granite centre with 100mm wide of wood on the edges (granite was from the section they cut out for the kitchen sink - so pretty solid and no marks).

The formal lounge has one, would look too open without, but it just holds the chess set. I've got a few special ornaments that were packed away when DD started crawling - now she's at school I should probably track them down and put them back on the side tables.

My parents have a massive one and it is usually covered in stuff that mum gets cranky at us making a mess when we visit (although 75% of the crap is theirs).