I spent a long time thinking a wooden chair was a wooden chair, one straight backed thing was as good as another, and I'd grab whatever matched the table and call it done. What changed my mind was sitting in a set of oak chairs at a client's place that had been through three house moves and two sets of teenagers, and realizing they looked better than when they started. That's the thing nobody tells you about wood seating. It's not furniture you buy and maintain in a straight line downward. It's furniture that can go up.
How it ages depends almost entirely on the wood and the finish, and this is where I get fussy. Oak and ash take knocks without flinching and darken nicely with handling, the arms especially, right where hands land every single day for years. Pine is softer, it'll dent if you look at it wrong, but those dents read as character rather than damage once there's enough of them. Beech is the quiet workhorse, it holds a joint well and doesn't complain, which is why so many old dining chairs are beech under a coat of paint nobody's ever stripped off. Whatever the wood, the finish is what actually does the aging. Oil finishes want feeding once or twice a year with a cloth and a little patience, nothing complicated, and they reward you with a surface that looks fed rather than flat. Varnish and lacquer wear differently, they chip at the edges over time and then you're looking at a repair rather than a touch up, so know which one you've got before you decide how much work you're signing up for.
Where wood chairs let you down is comfort over a long stretch. Nobody wants to sit in a hard wooden seat through a three hour dinner, and I say that as someone who has made guests do exactly that and watched them get twitchy by dessert. A cushion helps, a properly upholstered seat pad helps more, but if you need a chair for sinking into after work, this isn't it, that's a different kind of chair entirely. And keep wood chairs away from anything already busy and wood heavy, a room with a chunky wood dining table, wood floors and a wood sideboard starts to feel like a sauna rather than a dining room, so let something else in the space carry a different material.
Next time you're looking at one, check the joints before you check the finish. Run a hand along where the legs meet the seat, give it a gentle shake. A chair that's solid there will outlast every trend that comes near it.
