Digizz,
I know I said I'd try and post pics of this design I mentioned and apologize for failing to do so yet. Seeing your designs, I'd like to offer my thoughts, and my efforts at a written description in lieu.
My eldest lad made a table for his GCSE. The design brief was for flat pack, so the leg to top joint is by a custom designed metal bracket rather than jointing but anyway the points I wanted to mention are:-
The top and legs are made from 30mm solid timber made with lamins (a la kitchen worktops) 25mm finished thickness in this case. It looks close to beech but I'm sure it's a tropical timber - maybe rubberwood or something like it.) The table size is 750mm x 750mm. The top consists of 4 pieces 160mm wide mitred and biscuited together with square 6mm 'antisun' (grey smoked) toughened glass inset. Using this timber material obviates any problem with movement as it is extremely stable and therefore mitred joints work very well. IMO the mitres are a significant design 'feature'.
The legs rather than solid square timber section, are also made from the worktop material i.e. two 100mm wide sections corner mitred and biscuited. The most difficult part of this project being acheiving a 'seamless' corner on the mitre joint, and he did commendably well given his lack of practical experience in woodworking.
The legs are flush to the edge of the tabletop aiming for a minimalist 'cubic' look. He found this to be quite tricky given the need for flat pack design as for it to look 'right', the joint needs to be dead flush and as seamless as possible. His answer was to route a 5mm wide x 3mm deep rebate around the outside edges of the leg top creating a 'feature groove'. The effect hides the joint seam and slightly 'disconnects' the legs yet retains the overall flush, 'cubic' look to the whole piece.
A lower glass shelf fits inside the 'L' profile legs supported on those acrylic shelf 'pins' (I'm not sure exactly what they're called). The support pins are not straighforwardly visible which contributes to the minimalist look.
The whole piece is chunky particularly with the 'L' legs, yet simple, much as I suspect you are looking for, after seeing your CAD models (he modelled his in 'Rhino' BTW).
I know this material is quite pricey. In this case however I'd been given a 6' x 3' slab for free (cosmetic damage - i.e. a few scratches to the pre-applied 2-pack varnish which was planed off anyway) from a source in the trade.
Postscript: He got an A*. His piece was shortlisted (8 out of 1200) for a national design award and received silver which he was really pleased with.
regards
ike.