I guess all those years building electronics projects makes soldering second nature to me. Our old train layouts, even though temporary for the holidays, always were soldered. And I just continued that as I built my own. In the DC days it was just one or two sets of feeders tied together to run back tot he block toggles, and some 3-conductor wire spliced in to extend the wires for snap-switches.
It’s even easier for DCC, with a pair of decent Klein or Ideal strippers, I can nick-free strip a bare spot in the bus wire, snip off the isualtion on the end of a feeder wire, and wrap it tight around the bare spot of the bus. Few seconds with the soldering gun - 150 watt type, keep the low power unit on the bench for decoder wires, it’s not usable here - and the wires are soldered on. I can’t remember the last time I dropped a blob of solder on myself working under the layout - that happens when you apply the solder to the tip of the gun instead of the joint like you are supposed to. Plus it’s easier these days - putting the layout up to reasonable viewing heights on the top means there’s that much more room underneath as well. I can sit normally under mine, no wierd hunched over positions. Which also means, unless I try to reach for a connection, there generally aren’t any body parts under the joint being soldered anyway.
If I were so inclined, I would only use the real 3M brand connectors, not the cheap knockoffs. But even for the relatively small layout I have now, the cost of the connectors and a proper set of pliers (even avoiding the official tool which is REALLY expensive) would exceed what I paid for a spool of solder and the soldering gun. Compounding the problem is the feeder solution I found, is about #22 wire, comes in two colors which match my bus wires - neither 3M nor the knockoffs have a connector which goes directly from my feeder to my bus, so I’d have to use TWO connectors at each feeder (and I have a lot of them - every turnout has 3 se