We study theoretical and practical aspects of five of the most well-known self-stabilizing dining philosophers algorithms. We theoretically prove that three of them are incorrect. For practical evaluation, we simulate these five algorithms as well as two classic non-self-stabilizing algorithms and evaluate their fault-tolerance, latency and throughput of critical section access. We present a new combined algorithm that achieves the best throughput of the two remaining correct self-stabilizing algorithms by determining the system load and switching between these basic algorithms. We prove the combined algorithm correct, simulate it and study its performance characteristics.