There are many ways to join wood without glue. They require skill instead.
If you fail to understand the role of glue, you are at best, an untrained 'handyman'.
You have much you could learn, but never will unless you can get over your ego and ignorance.
An 'arts and crafts' guy who buys nominal lumber, and doesn't know what a glue-lam is, should be making less statements, and asking more questions.
I understand the role of glue. It is to allow the unskilled to do 'woodworking'. "Get er' done ya'll"
I know what a lamination is too. Just don't consider it as 'fine' woodworking, as the unskilled do.
One thing that we know for certain is that laminations delaminate. A dowel will never suffer this. Ever.
There are a great many examples of traditional woodworking done without the benefit of modern glue that have stood the test of time. Some on the order of thousand of years.
The longest lasting modern glued joint is less than 50 years old, and there are countless modern glued joints that have failed in less than a decade.
Actually, with the frequency of changes in glue formulations, 50 years is extremely generous. There are no time tested glued joints done with modern glue, it simply hasn't been around long enough.
Sure, there are non glued joints that have failed too, but no modern glued joint can hold a candle to non glued for at least another thousand years.
Edit:
Here's a question for you.
What would you do if the hardware stores closed tomorrow for the foreseeable future?
Don't even get me started on metal fasteners and the nail sick wood they have destroyed.
One could not made a good argument. How do you think the panels are made?
You can't make glue-lam panels without glue. Your 'fine' furniture is extremely limited without them.
Glue joints are stronger than wood. A properly made panel, or joint of any kind, will not break on the glue line, the wood near it will break first.
30 years in the woodworking trade, and a red seal journymen.
You can watch videos if you want, but i have made and tested the glue joints using a sledgehammer.
I was skeptical of glue-lam panels when I first started out, and did my own experiments.
White glue is stronger than wood. You've been led astray by hobbyist videos.