Depending on the joining method used, a 4 sided box can be stronger than a 3 and front design.

If a person is making a lot of drawers, making them 4 sided is faster.

And, as I found when I made my first piece of furniture with drawers, aligning the false fronts was a whole lot easier than having to precisely set drawer slides. The pieces I made have less than 1/8" clearance around drawer fronts.

Time and skill required to make and fit real drawers is much greater.

Thanks for the info

Rwiegand - which are the "real" drawers? I sounds like you have a strong opinion for one or the other.

Actually for kitchen cabinets I think a drawer box with an applied front is fine. It is much more cost effective and, given the skill sets of most installers, much more likely to result in evenly spaced, well aligned drawers.

I would insist on dovetailed boxes with hardwood sides, or baltic birch with a plywood-appropriate interlocking joint. In the last two kitchens I've had I've ended up having to re-make drawer boxes that have failed at the joints. One of these had MDF boxes that just fell apart, the other had hardwood that was rabbeted, glued and nailed.

When I make furniture I connect the sides and front using half-blind dovetails, as has been the practice over the last several hundred years (hence "real", not an accurate word to use). You have to get these right the first time, which is why they are more expensive.