[alexpovel]

> basically every scientific paper I read is set using pdftex

That is only because their templates are years behind the curve and they are slow to update. It is not an argument for the advantages of pdftex, aside from its stability, gained over many decades.

LuaTeX has been nothing but stable for me, so from a technical standpoint, there is no reason not to switch.

As far as scientific papers go, the publishers and editors probably value stability and backward-compatibility (I would).