Chair corner block with dowels?

Hello all!

I have been using this site as a resource for a few years, but recently signed up so I could post and view attachments. I am new enough to woodworking that I have little to offer yet in terms of advice, but hopefully that will one day change.

My question concerns some chairs I will be building for our kitchen table. They will be fairly casual, and I have adapted some plans for a side chair on the FineWoodworking website, and purchased some white ash for the project. I made a couple of Adirondack chairs out of ipe last year, but these will be my first attempt at a chair using traditional joinery. The plans call for corner blocks to support the leg to rail joints, and they are glued and screwed into the rails. I know they will be hidden under the seat, but after all the effort that will go into the rest of the joints, something about just screwing it bothers me. I searched the forum and found a thread which indicated glue alone was not sufficient. What about clamping the block in place, and drilling through the rails at a 45 and into the block to insert glued dowels which could then be trimmed flush? If that is no good, what about cutting a channel in both the rail and block for a spline? I am sure I can come up with other ideas, but those were the first 2 that came to me.

I acknowledge I am being a little nuts here, but thought perhaps someone else with more experience could tell me if they had ever seen it done successfully, or if I should stick to the tried and true method.

Thanks in advance,

Ted