The Danielson's work really well if you tune them. For example, my brother came up from Oregon for the 4th of July weekend and brought a couple Danielson's he had bought but never uses - they were unmodified as purchased. Filled with same bait as my Danielson's and set in the same location/same depth. When we would pull the string, his pots would have 2-3 crab with one of them being a nice big keeper. My pots would have 12-15 crab with 6-8 keepers.

Here's the simple mods I make with a pair of pliers and 20 minutes:
1) open up the wire loop that is the hinge for the doors to a nice large round shape allowing the door to swing freely - unmodified, these can "stick" open allowing crab to come and go.

2) I bend shut all the clips that hold the panels together rendering the pot "un-collapsable" but much sturdier. The one side panel that I open to unload crab and load my bait box I bend the bottom clip shut but in a nice round loop to allow it to swing open/closed easily. The top of that panel I adjust the "clip" so it takes a fair amount of pressure to unhook it and open it. (I also store my rope and floats inside the trap through this panel when not in use)

3) I weight my doors with a couple wraps of pencil lead as mentioned above so the doors don't blow open in current and will drop shut more readily behind a crab that has just entered.

4) I use a bait box zip tied to the center of the bottom of the trap so it can't "float" to one edge allowing crab to snack instead of entering. I put it on the bottom of the trap instead of the top for the same reason. Don't want crab crawling onto the top of the trap and getting a free meal without entering. I use a fairly small-mesh bait box so I can put trimmings or old leftover herring etc in it without them washing out of the box.

5) I rig a harness or attach my rope in such a way that the trap comes up level and even instead of all the crab being dumped into a corner or against a door putting undue pressure on it.

6) If I'm in a high-current area or leaving it through an extra-strong tide exchange I'll weight the pot by clipping halibut leads to the bottom of the pot.

Other tips:

1) I make my floats unique by adding a couple net floats or some additional float trailing a couple feet behind the main float. Easier to spot my floats and if a strong current pulls the main float just under the surface the secondary float will still be on top as there's not enough line between floats to catch the current and pull the trailing float under.

2) Leaded line - a no brainer now a days and way easier than adding lead down the line.

3) I pay extra attention to the depth and current direction when dropping the pots to make sure the current doesn't carry them over too deep of water by the time they hit bottom.

4) I pay attention to the specific topography of where I drop the pots. Think of the current as a river and find the drops, ledges, etc. that will create back eddies which will collect natural bait and concentrate the crab. When you find these honey holes mark them on your GPS and keep them a secret. 4 pots dropped as a group within a 20-yard radius in one of these spots is way more effective than 10 pots scattered randomly across the bottom.

5) use good bait - to each their own but I find it hard to beat fresh salmon carcasses. Tuna and halibut work well too. I have seen crab stay out of a trap baited with ling remains - go figure - not always but when it happened it was significant. All other traps plugged and the one baited with ling remains empty.

6) Slow tide = best time - current is good to carry scent and create a scent trail for the crab to follow to your trap

Slack tide = second best time - crab that have been pinned to the bottom during a strong current will actively hunt during the slack tide before hunkering down again for the next strong flow.

Strong flow = worst - crab are hunkered down and not hunting. Exception is finding a back eddy where a strong tide is collecting natural bait and crab in an area that's not receiving a direct blast of current. Let me know when you find these areas.

Happy Crabbing!