This seems to be a personal thing, but I like four-drawer stacks if they're narrow (18" or narrower) and three-drawer if they're wider than that. We have several narrow three-drawer stacks in our kitchen right now that are a pain in the neck---things get lost in there. In contrast, our wide drawers are four-drawer stacks right now, and are too shallow. So the new kitchen will reverse this.

I think five-drawer would give you drawers that are very shallow, and maybe too shallow to be very useful---but might depend on what you want to store in them....

I think you need to go thru your drawers and cabs and see what you are now using drawers for and how it's working and what you'd like to have in drawers and what depth they'll need to be useful.

it looks like you have a good amount of storage.

I'd like a mixture of them. some utensils don't need a very deep drawer - some need a bit more depth.

are you going to put your dishes in drawers? cups? glasses? glass baking dishes? (I wouldn't want to 'stack' those in a drawer - just 1 deep).

for shallow drawers besides silverware etc I have on my list the local phone book (small), paper, pens, recipes etc to go in a shallow drawer. then kitchen 'tools' (little hammer, pliers, screwdriver, scissors, stapler, flashlight, batteries.

place mats, cloth napkins, table runner, candles...

a bit deeper drawer - strainer, funnel, measuring cups, spoons... cups... hand mixer and attachments, mandolin and parts etc

I would do the a mix of 3 & 4 stacks and use drawers organizers to keep them neat. If you prefer 4 drawers, do those and keep 1 as a 3 stack to give you choices.

I would go thru your whole kitchen and decide what you will store in each drawer and then decide if you need 3, 4 or even 5 drawers. I have only one stack of 4 drawers for the following in order: wine and cheese accessories, place mats, towels and finally napkins on the bottom. The rest I have as 3 drawers and they are much more useful to me. Also remember your top drawer in each stack is shallow.

This is what I have stored in my 3 drawer stacks in the lower 2 drawers (listed per cabinet):
> dishes and kids dishes
> plastic containers
> pots and pans
> glass baking dishes and patio dishes
> food processors and other small electronic gadgets (under microwave)
> bread drawer and snack drawer

I have only one 4 drawer stack and really don't need another. It holds mostly tea boxes (I drink a LOT of tea), dish towels, napkin rings, napkins. The drawers are pretty shallow. Maybe if you are a collector of kitchen gadgets a lot of shallow drawers are good. But I wouldn't sacrifice the more usable 3 drawer stacks.

you can always put less or smaller items in a bigger drawer, you can't put bigger items in a shallow drawer tho.

if you have the space I do think 1 stack of 4 is good to have.

Thanks everyone for your great input. I went through my kitchen and all the drawers (and all the cupboards too). I figured out that I do need some deep drawers but a lot of what I have would be easier to get to if it wasn't buried in deep drawers. I ended up turning in my final order with 4 banks of 4 drawers and 5 banks of 3 drawers. The only thing I wish I had is a 4 drawer bank that's really wide - but there's just no place in my kitchen that'll work for that. There's too many space eating gee-gaws like a wine fridge and warming drawer that sort of dictated more narrow cabinets. But I was really glad to get the input - it helped me think things through a lot better.