Mostly what I use that reveal for is to hide any imperfection in the layout of my mortises. If you try to set the rails right at the edges of the posts and you get it anything less than perfect it looks like crap and you’re doomed to a shit ton of planing and sanding. Inset it a quarter inch and if you miss by the width of a pencil mark no one will notice. It also provides some visual interest to what is essentially a collection of rectangles. It will throw more interesting shadows on itself.

The hinges are attached to the posts, there isn’t a hinge made to do what I’ve done here that I could find, so I had to dig some big ol mortises and use inset face mount hinge brackets. The Blum hinges are a bit pricey and if you read my other long, ranty post they’re weirdly difficult to buy in my time zone but I finally managed to get what I need.