I've just tried connecting to my external monitor again and 10 seconds is exactly how much it took - no exaggeration there. The internal monitor goes blank for 1 or 2 seconds, then both monitors turn on and it takes another ~8 seconds for the UI to adjust and the windows to be moved to the proper place.

> you consider usb-c brittle?!?

It's much easier to unplug USB-C than HDMI or DisplayPort, for one. USB-C itself is a terrible mess that requires an engineering degree to figure out what's compatible and not, and maybe it's just me and I have a shit hub but I had an external hard drive crash midway through a file transfer due to power issues despite being powered by a Apple charger (the hub and all the peripherals went dark and the laptop stopped charging, then started cycling on and off where every time the drive tries to start up again it kills everything).