mikew
>Rabbet planes are not "very" expensive. New shoulder planes from LN and LV are more expensive.

Rabbet planes do what they do effeciently and quickly. My personal favorite is a wooden moving filester as shown below. While it takes a few more seconds to adjust the fence than a metal Stanley #78, the skewed blade makes it worth it. I have used it for raised panels and chamfering drawer bottoms as well.

The LN rabbet block plane can be very useful as well for more than cleaning up rabbets, for such things as tuning tenons and again for raising smaller raised panels for instance. Same goes with the LN #140.

Have fun with which ever way you go.

Take care, Mike