It's easy to tell if it's the stain, just take out a drawer and put it sideways next to the door. I have stained a lot of wood, and never had it look that consistanly different. With face framed cabients, you've got alot of horizontal and veritcal grain, and the only time I'd have differences show up is if I stained them in different batches and was not extra careful to make sure to do it the same way (like getting in a hurry and wiping the stain off too soon). I've seen some dramatic difference if different finishes where used, some are way more amber than others. BTW -are these solid or veneer? I expected to see seams if solid, and then you could have some variantion within a door/drawer and not just between them. I ask becuase I've seen some rather dramitic difference in veneer stained exactly the same.

Yes. It prevents the slamming noise of wood striking wood.

"For instance, when I was drilling the holes for the drawer fronts, I learned to place a piece of wood on the backside of the wood that I was drilling to prevent the wood from splintering." That was going to be my suggestion, but you already figured this out. God job. Carpenters never buy templates. You can make better ones in the shop.

The cabinets we took out had stapled and glued plywood drawers with butt joints. They were about 35 years old and we never had a single problem with the drawers - even the 36" wide and 10" deep pot and pan drawers. Well done stapled and glued joints are strong enough. Dovetails in solid wood are stronger, but the stapled and glued are strong enough. Have you seen some of the ones your prospective cabinet maker makes? I've seen some pretty shoddy work in new houses - gaps in the glue or messy glue; unevenly spaced staples - our old ones at least had very tidy workmanship. Our new cabinets have solid wood drawers with dovetails - I know I don't need them but they sure are pretty. Dovetails are a strong joint for solid wood where they make use of the strength characteristics of the grain direction, but they aren't good for plywood. Does the guy who does dovetails use solid wood for the drawer sides? I consider the dovetails to be a nice aesthetic feature but not functionally necessary - I wouldn't have gotten them if doing so strained the budget or meant trading off a more important functional feature in my kitchen. I don't think you need the cabinet maker to install to get a great installation. Our GC's installers did a very good job. But it may be convenient for you to have the cabinet maker install so you don't have to find someone else to do it and so there is no finger pointing.