There is also a very popular gel stain on Amazon that is awesome. 

They will just be a brown stain in the rearview mirror of life.

I have a rental unit where the carpet is all good except for 2-3 spots where there are few stains.

That way you do not need to worry about stains and frayed carpet. 

It was a hardwood floor that had been stained / poly'd, and the bed wheels were taking the poly  off.

ALso pick a darker color like walnut brown, the core of the laminate is darker colored, so when the wear layer gets scratched it's much less noticeable when the top color is a darker too.Carpet is absolutely the easiest and most forgiving flooring, but, you will have to professionally clean it, it will stain easier, it will be more susceptible to bed bugs.also, carpet does not age well... and when I carpeted my units I found that we ended up having to recarpet every 5-10 years because the places wouldn't show well with 5-7 year old well lived on carpet, no matter how many times we cleaned them(cats and dogs were there, even worse).... with laminate flooring it's more like 7-12 years.Also, I approximate that you get a solid 10-15% more with "wood looking" vinyl, laminate, or tile.Just my 2c

For instance, there may be no holes in the walls and no stains in the carpets, but you may feel like the cabinets could be better.

First questionFor the type of wood Aspen is paint grade so you can paint or stain them and have good result.  

You are most likely looking at a full lainting of the house to remove the smoke stains, residue and smell.

The walls had to be repainted from the holes, smoking and misc stains.