I have probably built several hundred cabinet doors and drawers. When putting glass in a door I build the door with a rabbet on the inside back edge for the rails and stiles. I paint or varnish the door frame and then my glass guy uses a clear caulk adhesive inside the rabbet. Then he drops the glass in and he is done. Adding a slot to the top rail simply complicates the whole process.
Glass will be much more scratch resistant and easier to clean. I would go with tempered glass to resist easy breakage. A textured glass like Flemish can add look good.
Here is what I am talking about. This is Flemish glass that distorts the focus of what is behind it. And shows the glass fitting inside the rabbet.
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As stated above, finish the doors however you like and then add the glass with the proper clear adhesive. If the glass gets broken your glass guy or you can remove the broken glass with out any complicated reapair to the door.
That depends how much cleaning of the doors you will be doing. For kitchen doors I typically apply General Finishes Arm-R-Seal. A good quality foam brush, think Wooster brand. Works shockingly well. Do not overwork the finish. Just get it on there and let it settle out. When dry if the surface is rough you can wrap a piece of paper around a block of wood and rub the surface a few light strokes. The surface will smooth out with little effort.
I do not use any of the above stated tools to build Shaker style doors. I only use rail and stile bits in a router table. 90% of the doors that I build are Shaker style, see the above links. I do it all on the table saw with a dado set for the corner lap joints. I try to avoid 45 mitered corners. Those are weak.
Well pretty much all of them assuming the non soft close version is easy to install. Soft close does not add any difficulty over the non self close version. Again I pretty much only use Euro style face frame hinges in bulk a hundred at a time. BUT with Euro hinges you will need a way to drill a 35mm/1-3/8" hole 1/2" deep on the back of the door stile.
I buy this hinge, but not at this supplier. Blum COMPACT 1/2" Overlay Wrap Around Screw-On Hinge Model:38N355C.08
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Any wood that is in the hardwood family. Oak, Walnut, Cherry and or Poplar if you plan to paint. All of the above can be stained and varnished and or simply varnished for a nicer look. Be certain to get flat and straight stock.
Let me clarify here. The hinge at the link above is not soft close but the soft close version fits and installs exactly the same way.
I would advise to go to the Blum website to get the correct model model of the hinge you want if you go with a face frame Euro style hinge.
Here is the soft close version of the hinge that I buy and from this company.
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Note once logged in they typically offer a bulk price break. IIRC a box of 50 gets a pretty good discount over the single hinge price.
ALSO if you buy 52 hinges, you get the bulk pricing on the box of 50 and you pay full price for the 2 extra. Something to keep in mind. You will need a minimum of 40 hinges for 20 doors. A box of 50 might be less expensive than 40 singles.
Tempered glass may save a finger or an arm (sorta like a SawStop ;-). Glass has a habit of breaking into large, knife-edged chunks, which can (do) fall slicing anything in their path. My wife ran through a glass window when she was a kid. The ER doctor stopped counting at
100 stitches.
Tempered glass "explodes" into a billion little "B-Bs", none with enough energy to cut skin. It's used for side windows in cars which is they you see all the little pieces of glass after an accident. Tempered glass is now building code for exterior doors (likely windows now too). Hundreds of accidents like my wife's are the reason why.
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