I am writing this from a Framework, and the swapable ports were a large driver. Yes, you can use a dock; in fact I’m typing this right now from a dock. But I keep the extra plugs with my laptop bag so I can use them on the go. By far HDMI is my most used to take over hotel and rental TVs. Also my USB-A ports give me an ad-hoc A-to-C connector, useful for phones. Really Framework made it’s own first party dongle adapters and built them into the chassis. Apple could do this tomorrow and we’d make iDongle jokes by the afternoon.

If I had to venture a guess, the feeling everybody has is a loss of flexibility that a portable device with many different ports provides. Unless you lug around all those adapters, there are a wealth of older devices you cannot use. I expect this to shrink away as USB-C grows to become the dominant standard the way USB originally did. At the same time, there is no reason to be so stingy with the number. Cram like 6 USB-Cs to a side, even if only two are the super special 3.2boogaloomintychocolatecandymountaincharlie-USB that is enough to run a full docking station.