Sounds like you answered your own question about what looks better and why. It's obviously the missing toothpick.
They don't look cold to me... the light makes them look dead. You don't have any sparkle or light hitting the interior of the glass to liven it up. They also look a bit under exposed and the color balance is off a little. The flash is going to over power the light and basically make it as it wasn't there... unless you slow down your shutter speed to allow the light to register along with the flash. You will have to diffuse the flash though so it does not over expose the beads. this isn't bad though because by diffusing the flash you get a softer light. I think if you can increase your exposure a little, that will help but getting some light from the side, either reflected or another flash would help. You can get decent pictures from a single flash, you just have to work at it a bit.
Also, nice beads.
Mike