All kitchen receptacles are required to be on GFCI circuits or have an actual GFCI device installed at that location. Lighting circuits are generally 14 ga. and small appliance circuits such as kitchen recpts. are required to be #12. You can certianally swap out 1 or 2 of your single pole switches for double toggle or double flip decora switches, this still may not solve your other issue about correct circuit for counter top kitchen plugs. That being said, in residential wiring, you normally will find the circuit power for switches to be located in the switch box. In older houses and many commercial applications you may find that the power wires are actually in the ceiling box to save wire. My previous house, built in 1952, Had all the power for the lights in the ceiling boxes. They would have drilled the holes in the top plates with a manual drill and running the wires along the walls between switches would use more wire and would require a lot more manual drilling. I have wired literally several hundred houses in Las Vegas and the codes on kitchen circuits have been getting more stringent over the years. For personal use though, there is no reason you couldn't make it work for you with a GFCI device in that location. They do actually make a combo GFCI plug with a switch built in but I personally don't like them. I use Decora switches in my house.
