Nothing wrong with the way you did it. A 45 degree miter and bevel are all that's needed if your corners are square. Otherwise, you have to cut odd angles in order to get a tight fit on the joint. Crown molding is placed on the saw upside down to make the cuts. When you use a coping saw, you back-cut the molding at an angle, (on just a mitered end)following its profile (only on one piece). When you put the pieces together, the coped piece fits tight against the other. If the corner is out of square, you simply change the angle of the coped piece. Instead of a perfect 90, it might be 88 or 93, but it still fits tightly together. YouTube has some good videos on how it's done.

Ok so coping is only to deal with less than perfect corners?

I am installing it on cabinetry so it should be fairly square. So it seems to me instead of coping you could also adjusting the bevel more or less than 45 to deal with a bad corner? I imagine it's more reasonable if the moulding is cheap and you can use some scraps to mock up the correct composition of that problematic corner

The reason I am trying to avoid coping is because it looks very difficult.

Coping isn't too hard. Try it on some scraps someday. Along with a coping saw, it's nice to have a round rasp. (But since you're working on cabinetry now, don't fret... everything should be square.)

And you're correct that you can play with the bevel angle to adjust corners. (And people do, for nice outside corners.) Since many people cut their crown flat on the saw table, so it becomes a mental exercise to "fix" corners. Plus, you'd want to fix both sides of the corner, so it's more work again.

Coping is fairly easy if you don't have a really complicated profile, just need a steady hand. I think it's actually harder to cut the 45 (upside down and backwards). You will have to get the right angle cut first - 45 might not work, might need to adjust it (if your walls aren't square, the cabinets might not be either unless they were scribed or shimmed). Try scrap pieces first. It helps if the molding is painted or stained first, because then you have a nice line to follow. Just do it in sections and make short front-to-back cuts to take small pieces out, don't try to cope the whole edge at one time (like peeling an apple in 1 piece LOL). Then smooth the back out with a rasp or 100 grit sandpaper, keep checking the fit.

A few days late to this thread, but since I just did one small room of CM, & am about to do a more complex room (w/ my brand new/used miter saw this time!) I thought I'd share the best info I found on mitering crown molding w/o coping.

After watching his video & reading the site, I d'loaded this fellow's ebook ($20) & it was worth every penny to me. He made the upside down & backwards description a pleasant walk in the park, where for me the whole coping thing was like a trip to Mars. With foreign language guides. Maybe it's just me. But I have decent looking CM in the bath I did, just using my miter box, so I look forward to having perfect looking CM in my living room (w/ no square corners) now that I have the ability to cut my miters at 43, 44, 47, etc. with the miter saw :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Cutting Crown Molding