A few points to think about. One - nothing says a mounting pedestal has to be metal. I've seen some mighty nice ones that were turned from wood. My favorites are cherry and maple, with walnut a close third. It's worth looking at the "turning blanks," sold by places like woodcraft.com for making pens. Dozens of nice, exotic species in small pieces for reasonable prices.
Two - nothing says it has to be round. GM's idea of square pedestals sounds perfectly ok.
I would suggest doing a little woodworking on them, so they don't look like any old scrap of wood. Just a little shaping with knife, chisel, and file can make a big difference. And apply a nice finish. (If you don't have much practice, it's tough to go wrong with Minwax polyurethane varnish, which you can buy by the half pint.)
Some of the nicest mounts I've seen are very simple, small cradles shaped from ebony or rosewood. The late Donald McNarry (My Hero) mounted quite a few of his models like that.
My biggest suggestion is that the way a model is displayed has a great deal to do with the success of its overall appearance. It may be tempting to ignore the problem until the project is almost done, and then be satisfied with whatever you can throw together in an hour. (After all, there's another model waiting to be built.) A better idea: figure out the mounting system at the beginning of the job. And work out a way for it to hold the model really securely.
For my current fishing schooner, I think I'm going to take a leaf out of Pyro's book: a simple, single, notched block of figured wood under the hull forward of amidships, with the aft end of the keel sitting directly on the bottom of the case. To my eye, that's a good way to show off that particular hull shape. I've been messing around with basswood dummies, trying to get the proportions right. Haven't succeeded yet, but I hope to before it's time to make the real block (out of buckeye burl, think).
Personally, I find this a fun part of model building.