RE: how to sttrengthen without adding weight?
In 45 years of building scratch, kits, and ARFs, I have never had a plane fall apart in the air, under any circumstances. As they say, different stroke for different folks. I'll stick with what I have been doing, but that is not to say that other methods would work as well. On ARFs, I concentrate on the firewall, wing mounting structure, and landing gear mounts, with a little time spent on overall construction.
Also, no glue will "soak into" already glued joints. You are looking for joints with little or no glue, keeping the added glue to a minimum. CA is brittle and makes poor fillets.