Mike
I wouldn't try to convince you that you have to do anything different than what you currently doing because it's not necessary. Your methods work for how you fly so my recommendation is to just build rockets the way you built the first one and you'll be fine.
Military rockets by nature have to be extremely efficient and the structures have to be very strong but very light because they have a mission to perform that usually end up with a big bang so the majority of the weight is warhead and propellant. A certain minimum warhead weight is required for a given type of mission, and having more propellant gives a greater range, stand-off distance and/or speed which reduces time to target.
In any composite, the strength is derived from the fibers and the epoxy is simply a matrix material that holds the fibers in place. Extra epoxy does not weaken the rocket, it just adds weight and since the ultimate in performance is not an issue, who cares. Hobby rocket aren't weapons. They don't carry warheads and don't require extreme range or speed. The weight of the structure is much less of an issue.
Compared with military rockets, the stresses in hobby rockets are low. Our rockets are unguided and we're not pulling 50 G turns, so the structural airframe loads are much less than in military rockets. Hobby rocket motors in general have lower thrust than most military motors and have lower peak velocities as well.
Truth be told, the composite materials used in the early day of rocketry, fiberboard tubing and plywood, are plenty strong for most rocketry applications. Sonotube, aka paperboard or fiberboard tubing, is strong stuff (it can support the weight of a 20' tall column of wet concrete) and about half the density of fiberglass tubing. Plywood too is half the density of commercial fiberglass.
Many rocket failures are not caused by lack of strength, but lack of stiffness. Airframe buckling and fin flutter are two examples of this. An alternative to fiberglassing an airframe is to use thicker wall fiberboard tubing or doubling the thickness with a full length coupler. This makes the airframe 4 times stiffer. Similarly if you double the thickness of a plywood fin, you double the weight, but it becomes 4 times stiffer and the resonant frequency also doubles so you effectively increase the resistance to flutter by a factor of 8. A 1/4" thick sheet of G10 weighs the same as a 1/2" thick piece of plywood, but is more expensive and harder to work with than plywood. A 1/2" thick of Baltic birch plywood is really stiff and I doubt you could get it to fail in flutter.
The bottom line is there's a ton of ways to build hobby rockets, and the right way is whatever works for you.
Bob