Yes Stiglr, you're absolutely right about the current Booleans: most of the times they work, but that's all: after running a Boolean you find yourself wondering where the heck all those extra vertices and surfaces came from and swear to yourself that next time you'll find a better way. The worst of it is that hearing you doing so much talking to yourself your wife sooner or later will suspect that you're calling another woman on an invisible cellular phone
Knife works much better, though it has its inherent limitations (sorry Dennis, not your fault) and it's way less versatile than a proper set of Booleans could be.
That's why I prefer drawing my objects around the holes: it saves plenty of time, labour and nerves.
That's also why I dearly hope you're right about the new Booleans: I like AC3D too much to dispose with it, but when it comes to ANDing, ORing or XORing objects I come dangerously close to cursing it.