@dallin@fosstodon.org Nope, never used any dongles😋
I used Apple Thunderbolt Display with that laptop so the only ports I used on the laptop itself were power and the Thunderbolt port — everything else was connected to the display. The display wasn't that good, laptop too, but this setup was super-clean, nothing even remotely close to what you see in the photos. I only had to use Firewire 800 port on rare occasions when we had to go to the studio to record something — hardly a very common use case.
@dallin@fosstodon.org Don't get me wrong, I'd very much prefer a real docking station like the ones I had for my Thinkpads (I'm not sure Lenovo still does that) and earlier Toshiba business models. Having single port is pretty damn close to that. Extensibility is cool — I hated early MacBook Air models as there was no way to use a Firewire soundcard at all. But having every single port imaginable on the laptop itself isn't any better — it creates even more clutter.
