Any question answered...

Are there any nice front loading quill stems?

Not really. Crystemblue and Frog are the most stylish, various MTB style welded jobs from ITM, Salsa, Profile etc are ugly but effective.

those crystemblue stems are difficult to get hold of. After some searching a found a reasonably (bearably) attractive deda mutant (or murex, I am not sure from the pictures) at condor for about £20.

They didn't have it in store but had them in the warehouse.

Whilst perusing through Velo Solo looking for some brake cables I saw this. Not bad for £26.45 posted if you want an understated front loading quill stem, non?
http://www.velosolo.co.uk/zenstem.html