You make a good point. Roses are a lot more than their flowers, and for garden effect you need to consider habit, foliage, and so forth. I've never had to move a rose because of the problem you describe, but it doesn't surprise me a bit that you did.

I pay quite a bit of attention to foliage, especially since I have mostly once bloomers. I did once move a rose because the color of the foliage looked sickly compared to that of the rose next to it.
I also moved a honeysuckle away from Veilchenblau for obvious reasons.

If you have a garden restricted to roses I think this would be more apparent. Planting lots of ornamentals of other species provides greater foliage contrast and this would ease the clash of rose leaves you noticed.

However I have removed roses because they looked too modern and struck a false note in my garden. I thought it was the flower color (neon pink), but perhaps shiny leaves contributed to the overly modern look.

In my personal aesthetic, 'modern' is not a compliment. It is only a good thing in reference to medicine and plumbing.

Rosefolly

Not JUST the foliage, but I really do consider the foliage and the habit of a plant just as strongly as I do its blooms. And like Folly, we've removed roses just because they seemed glaringly out-of-place.

The most striking example here was 'City Of San Francisco,' which not only had almost plastic-looking glossy foliage, but bloomed heavily and continuously in generous sprays of the most incredible, blinding, screaming-meemie red I have ever seen in a growing thing.

It made me long for ready-access to Valium, had a similar effect on DH, and was removed after one vigorous year of headache-making visual noise.

Jeri

While I do appreciate beautiful foliage I've never found that one against another was displeasing to me. I like all the colors and textures mixed together. For me it makes the garden more interesting and keeps the eye traveling around the yard to see all the differences. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

I have one climber whose blooms look so lovely with my nepeta's grey leaves, but whose foliage looks strange with the grey! I don't think most folks would notice, at least from a distance where they see it, but it does bug me :D