A consolidated, unified formulation of the conventional (CCBEM), hybrid stress (HSBEM), hybrid displacement (HDBEM) and simplified hybrid stress (SHSBEM) boundary element methods is presented. As a counterpart of SHSBEM, the simplified hybrid displacement boundary element method (SHDBEM) is proposed on the basis of the same stress and displacement approximation hypotheses of the HDBEM and on the assumption that stress fundamental solutions are also valid on the boundary. A combination of the SHSBEM and the SHDBEM gives rise to a provisorily called mesh-reduced hybrid boundary element method (MRHBEM), which seems computationally advantageous when applied to frequency domain problems or non-homogeneous materials. Four new matrix relations are identified, one of which may be used to obtain the flexibility and displacement matrix coefficients that cannot be determined by integration or direct evaluation. It is also proposed the correct consideration, still not well explained in the technical literature, that traction forces should be interpolated as functions of surface and not of nodal attributes. Numerical examples of potential problems are presented for each method, in which the validity of the new matrix relations is verified.