As has been said previously, I have been shooting B&W for more than sixty years except for while I was working for Beseler Photo Marketing (we sold rebranded Tetanol chemistry for color printing along with the necessary hardware) and when our daughter was small.
In the digital age, when color and B&W are economically identical, I shoot color. I'm not sure it has made any difference as to what or how I shoot, but it makes a big difference in post. Occasionally (like tonight) I process some things in both color and B&W just to see what I think. I think the concrete, which is basically monochrome, looks better in color, and I am of mixed mind on the clouds.
Obviously, I have yet to develop a coherent theory as to when I should do one versus the other.
I think it's a matter of preference. But whatever you shoot, if the image isn't telling anything for me it does not matter. I did bnw that I changed into color after a while. Maybe it was my mood and I will change it back.
I understand where you are coming from. Sometimes i set the camera to black and white because it is what I'm going for. However, a while back Phillip Breske posted a explanation of how editing the color version effects the outcome in black/white and it was really impactful for me. Now i shoot in color and convert. Like you, i don't always know what I'll prefer.
PS i like the cement one here a lot!
This is the post i referred to above. https://fstoppers.com/groups/201783/after/364339/colored-filter-effects-...
I like the colour blue, and the sea, and the sky - I suspect the latter two are the reason for the first - so I'll go for the colour, Andrew, for the sky images. I like the sense of depth here.
The other is a pure pattern for me, and the colour in it is wishy-washy (I can explain that highly technical term for those mystified) so I'll go for mono here. The colour version makes me think of porridge being stirred. Which is fine, but...
#3 and #4 are salt deposits on top of a 30-year-old concrete sidewalk. There is not a lot of inherent color there, and I probably could have done more with the saturation and contrast. I think your "wishy-washy" comment is spot-on. Even so, I moved the sliders more than I normally do.