My experience:
Biscuits have NO strength. They help for alignment only. The expensive Festool dominos supposedly do. They are out of my budget so no experience. I like dowels and splines, but it depends on the finish and if you want them visable. If painted, then no issue. Screws really only hold things in place for the glue to dry. They are not very useful in plywood.
Modern glues if correctly used are stronger than the wood. In a glued joint, it is about surface area. Remember, in plywood, the pieces are full of glue to start with.
Yea, dialing in a lock miter can take some effort. I don't have much hair left so nothing to pull out.
PS, that reminds me, I probably should sell my biscuit joiner. I was thinking of hanging on as there are some nifty hinges that sit in a surface cut joint but I can install regular square hinges just as well.
To join a shelf to a side, shallow dados have been used for hundreds of years with no problems. A stopped dado makes it look better from the front. Often only the center shelf is fixed and pegs hold all the rest. It being fixed to the back takes all the racking stress. Half lap rebates to join top to side also using nothing better than hide glue. I fond no fault with glued miters using only pins to hold alignment while the clamps/straps/rope hold it together to dry.
It is my belief, dovetails are pretty much obsolete as far as strength considering modern glues, but for fine furniture, they are expected and pleasing to the eye. There have been some WEB
objective tests that pretty much have the same conclusion as my
subjective experience.
There is the modern knock down hardware where a large head bolt goes into a cross connected threaded plug. Think Ikea. They can be very strong.
