>"I didn't know that a modern laptop could drive 2 4K monitors. This is good news."

Not any laptop but some do. It even does it while driving its own built-in monitor but I do not really use it.

>"your laptop setup is indistinguishable from a desktop"

you got that part right

>"your setup is even less portable than a desktop"

Nope. When I am out of my main office for whatever reason I unhook said laptop from all the cables and it works off-site including all my development environment. If my stay away is extended (working for a month in ocean side cottage for example I also would take one of those monitors). I just do not run production servers/databases/etc on my laptop ;). Btw my laptop soon transitioning from 32GB RAM to 128GB RAM as to give me more flexibility with the databases.

Worth case I can still access my workstations/servers remotely using SSH or NOMACHINE if SSH does not cut it. Since I have very fat internet pip it works just fine.

My laptop (16" MacBook Pro) can allegedly drive four 4K monitors. I currently use two 32" 4K (landscape) and one 24" 1440p (portrait). The additional portrait 1440p is totally silly, and it was because work happened to send me it for WFH.

Allegedly. I've never managed to make more than 2 of them work at 60hz at the same time. Maybe the correct set of cables might make it work, but they're like $20 each and frankly I'm sick to death of spending without results.

Not GP, but I travel a lot for work (last 7 months notwithstanding). When I’m home and docked, I have a 9/10 experience compared to my personal desktop. When I travel, I have a 1/2 as good experience as compared to when docked but 100% better experience than my desktop would give.

I think what confuses me about the GGP is that at some point don't you just get both a desktop and a laptop rather than trying to turn a super-laptop into an on-par desktop?

That’s what I did (and with one USB cable swap and a button press on the monitor, I can switch keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, and camera between them).

But the key for me is I do that because I have a work laptop and a personal desktop and I want no question about the ownership of things I do on the desktop.

This. Employers tend to give out laptops for home use, not desktops. I'm not about to use my personal desktop for work, or my work laptop for personal stuff.

When I disconnect my laptop to work from another location I have all my open files in the same place, all my shells alive and ready to re- ssue their last commands without fiddling with a large history file.

I organized my windows and tabs and splits in such a way that it degrades gracefully when I switch from the external monitor and back.

How often often do I really need that? Not often, but when I do it's really useful.