I think the nuts to pigeons thing is more just to indicate that Stanley doesn't understand his Tool, and it probably has more uses than he knows of.
The pliers are a good melee weapon, and the Dish lets Charlie pop Archons which are probably the most powerful unit we've seen in the game. In overall terms of power I'd say Pliers>Dish>>>>>>>>>>>>>Hammer given what we've seen so far. Not sure where the slippers rank, and I don't really care since they're not in the story at all so far.