Could you tell me more about the liability it creates? Is it a fire hazard? Decaying battery performance?
There's the problem.
Dedicated NVidia and AMD GPUs are the cause of a solid 50% of issues or instability with laptops. Including for Apple.
I get that some people really need them, but having one built-in to your laptop is just begging to have way more problems than if you left it out. If you want/need a high-reliability machine and can afford not to have a dedicated GPU, leaving it out is a really great way to instantly improve your odds a ton. Integrated GPUs used to be so bad they were a liability even if you weren't a gamer, but that hasn't been true in a long time. Hell, my base-model-with-a-little-extra-memory 2014 MBP could play Minecraft at high settings and Kerbal Space Program just fine on the integrated Intel GPU, plus a bunch of other Unity games. I know those games don't exactly represent the cutting edge of graphics (and didn't back then, either) but it was surprisingly capable.
Actually, now that I think about it, at least for me personally, GPUs are probably the cause of about half my problems on desktops, too.
Is this still true if the lid is closed?
My old 2017 MBP met that fate after mere couple of years, these machines tend to run annoyingly hot (I can hear it right now from the other room - partner is still using it). When it was mine, I kept using it with the lid closed (because the internal screen+keyboard were useless to me). I totally wasn't expecting the battery to suddenly become a spicy pillow! The Apple tech was a little bit scared to touch it, said it's gonna take a while to repair, I guess they can't open this sort of thing on site.
Of course some things changed with M1 (less hot) and later macOS updates (smarter/delayed charging), but the general advice applies to literally any device with a battery.
Some relevant links for Macbook and Thinkpad owners: https://github.com/davidwernhart/AlDente-Charge-Limiter https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/tp_smapi
So the battery stays about 80% charged and gets topped up to 80% intermittently when it naturally discharges. Is that not basically they optimum case for battery longevity?
Regardless, all of my MacBooks eventually have battery problems whether they were plugged in all the time or not: it is extremely common for MacBook batteries to eventually get so damaged they start to swell and either need to be replaced or crack the case (and that's ignoring the fire hazard).
For UPS applications you can use 3rd party software to force the battery to stay at 80% charge and lose less capacity per year.
