Strongly disagree. I use a laptop with a thunderbolt dock. Being able to plug in a single cable to provide power, connect my monitor, all of my input devices, Ethernet, and anything else in a single cable is awesome. If I had to plug 10 things in manually it would be quite cumbersome. I disconnect the laptop daily as I bring it between work and home, as well as use it, well, as a portable laptop.

Yeah, because plugging in one thing is way harder than plugging in six.

This is a classic use case for a laptop dock.

We aren’t justifying getting shafted by corporations. What I and the other person are saying is that at some point as your connections and cables multiply, you need to consolidate and streamline your setup for it to be more practical and actually mobile. I’m all for having all the basic necessity ports on my laptop, but when your desk ends up as a mess of cables and pulling out and putting back your laptop becomes bothersome with having to attach/re-attach everything every time, having a dock makes it much simpler. Subjecting yourself to setting up all those cables on both ends instead of just one end is the opposite of having a mobile workstation for quick setup and cleanup.

In this situation a hub is still better. You can pack all the stuff away plugged into the hub for easier set up. If your plugging that all into your laptop, you’ll need to plug it all back in again when you move.