We derive the most general parametrization of the unitary matrices in the Douglas-Kroll (DK) transformation sequence for relativistic electronic structure calculations. It is applied for a detailed analysis of the generalized DK transformation up to fifth order in the external potential. While DKH2-DKH4 are independent of the parametrization of the unitary matrices, DKH5 turns out to be dependent on the third expansion coefficient of the innermost unitary transformation which is carried out after the initial free-particle Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation. The freedom in the choice of this expansion coefficient vanishes consistently if the optimum unitary transformation is sought for. Since the standard protocol of the DK method is the application of unitary transformations to the one-electron Dirac operator, we analyze the DKH procedure up to fifth order for hydrogenlike atoms. We find remarkable accuracy of the higher-order DK corrections as compared to the exact Dirac ground state energy. In the case of many-electron atomic systems, we investigate the order of magnitude of the higher-order corrections in the light of the neglect of the DK transformation of the two-electron terms of the many-particle Hamiltonian. A careful analysis of the silver and gold atoms demonstrates that both the fourth- and fifth-order one-electron DK transformation yield a smaller contribution to the total electronic energy than the DK transformation of the two-electron terms. In order to improve significantly on the third-order correction DKH3, it is thus mandatory to include the DK transformation of the two-electron terms as well as the spin-dependent terms before proceeding to higher orders in the transformation of the one-electron terms. However, an analysis of the ionization energies of these atoms indicates that already DKH3 yields a highly accurate treatment of the scalar-relativistic effects on properties.