Here's a brain bender. A break/jump cue can have nothing but a 3/8-10 joint screw in the "A" joint, with no tenon/bore and no glue. They don't buzz, nor are they weak. Add a tenon/bore & some glue, and now you have to worry if it will buzz or perhaps fail in the future. If you never did anything but used a screw, it stays together just fine & is plenty strong with no buzzing. Why do we create a situation where strength, longevity, and noise are ever even a plausibility? Obviously break/jump cues prove that it's unnecessary, right? Or not?
Do we use a tenon/bore just because that's how everybody does it? Or did each one of us individually arrive at a similar conclusion after much trial & error in our own shops? Obviously there's merit to taking what somebody else has already figured out & continuing on with it or even developing it further. But at what point do we begin relying too much traditional methodology without really understanding why?
My point is that having a discussion about glue may be futile if we don't even know what the glue needs to do. I'm not 100% confident that any glue is the best, or even required at all. I'm not 100% confident that a tenon/bore is even required, or perhaps isn't even counter productive. Perhaps a simple stud with a dab of wood glue to lock the pieces is all that's needed, maybe even is the best. I think about crap like this all the time.
A J/B cue and a 'game-cue' are dimensionally different and with good reason; one is designed to flex, the other isn't.
Consider the task of each. The J/B is designed and built with one load/force in mind; straight-ahead impact.
It's designed specifically to COUNTER flex, ie, to stay as rigid as possible. That also means it doesn't need an 'A' jnt.
Game cues are INTENDED to flex, from the tip to at least to where your grip-hand is, though by that time and place in
the cue, the flex has been reduced to vibration which we call hit. Nobody speaks of the 'hit' in a J/B cue. There is none.
The 'A' is critical for flex. Part of it's design function is to keep the sidewalls of the cue where the handle and F/A meet, closed.
The J/B never sees that load, therefore, the 3/8x10 is adequate for IT'S task. It's not being asked to flex.
The 'A' has much greater function than people realize. It is the 'gate-keeper' (and filter) of the resonance that reaches the hand.
Everyone should design and build their OWN 'A' if they want to be known for THEIR 'hit'.
Your opening question of your 2nd paragraph is a rhetorical.
Most novice/entry-level 'practitioners' will follow someone else's lead; monkey see, monkey do.
It's the entire basis for the 'apprenticeship'. Very few independent thinkers come here to ask questions.
For the most part, they are the ones who answer the questions. Then the world gets to determine who is right.
It's good that you put extended thought into the equation. Some would call it 'over-thinking' the problem.
As long as there is more than one solution, there is no such thing as over-thinking. It's called engineering.
Most newbies are incapable of independent thinking, IMO. Most don't approach the craft as a challenge, a bag
of tricks and riddles to be solved. What they see is the distorted dream of glamour and a chance to make money.
Both goals are pipe-dreams and not really what cue-building is about.
