Wood grows on trees. It's way overrated.

It's a prejudiced buzz word that people who don't understand anything about actual cabinet construction and performance in the real world use. To their detriment.

sbc62vols, what is most important to you about all wood cabinets? Is it the look of the door? Have you had a bad experience with cabinets with particle-board shelves that were too thin and bent under a load of canned goods?

If you give us some additional information, perhaps someone can find some good recommendations for you.

I don't really know the price point of my cabinets - middle of the road, I guess. They came from Lowe's. The doors are solid maple and the drawer sides are solid wood as well. However, the other parts are pretty much MDF. After 8 years, they are still very solid. On the other hand, I know someone with thinner MDF parts in her cabinets who is getting shelves bowing under the weight of dishes and canned food after about 10 years.

Perhaps GreenDesigns could give some detailed guidelines that would be helpful in understanding what to look for in cabinet construction and why looking for solid wood might be a bad thing for some?

Perhaps this discussion would be helpful to the OP.

Here is a link that might be useful: What is Furniture Board

Solid wood sides don't allow for wood movement and are practically unavailable at any price. One brand I know of makes an unfinished pine cabinet with solid wood sides. You can get solid wood on exposed ends using rail and stile construction- these look like doors.
Solid wood shelves are readily available as an "upgrade" are prone to cupping and warping and generally a waste of money.

What specific material is used is NOT an indicator of quality. What brand is less important than who you work with.
Concentrate on who you want to work with. Try a few places, ask a lot of questions, go in with a budget in mind (ideally share it if you want it respected). See who answers your questions thoroughly and honestly.

What affects quality:
Finish- to a certain extent you can tell by look and feel

Wood grading- goes hand in hand with finish and increases consistency- you have to rely on the dealer for this unless your in the higher end.

Construction- face frame cabinets will be slightly more economical than frameless until you pass the upper middle price points. The largest percentage of face frame cabinets are "pocket hole" construction- most semi custom and most local custom use this. Upper middle should be either doweled frames or loose tenon (though I don't like the latter) Top end will be mortise and tenon.

Corner construction- least expensive are plastic corners- I beam or solid corner blocks are preferable. Full sub tops on insets are a big plus.

Glue- this one you can't tell as a consumer and most dealers can't tell you either- but is there enough.

Particle versus plywood tells you nothing and has been discussed extensively. There are cabinets that use particle that are superior to others that use ply....

Ply should be minimum 3/8" (an upgrade to 1/2" is nice, 3/4 is overkill)particle should be 1/2 minimum.
Frameless should be 3/4" and doweled IMO.

Hardware- for this brand matters-Blum, Grass, maybe KV or Accuride drawer glides, not Chinese- hinges matter less.

Warranty- what it says means little- get a sense of how comfortable the dealer is about it- how are replacements handled, how fast, do they need to call in a rep or can they just call the factory. You will also get a sense of consistency and grading when asking about this.
This is a good time to let them know just how fussy you are. If you are going to be very finicky about grain and match, they should be steering you to a more expensive cabinet because you are likely to be unhappy with what you can get at the lower end of things.