I've had Apple laptops going back to the release of the Titanium PowerBook and I've almost always used them plugged in for the vast majority of the time and I've never had this dreaded battery death that articles like this talk about.

However, I have a friend who seems especially apt at killing the very same batteries in the very same laptop models. My rather uninformed theory is that there's a specific kind of behavior that adversely affects them - but whatever it is, I don't do it and he does. I think the key is that he uses his without power a lot, running it down frequently, etc. which seems to be what this article is suggesting (and most articles about prolonging battery life suggest).

Given my own experience, I'm continuously confused at the pervasiveness of this advice given how counter it is to my own experience - but perhaps there's some intelligence in the batteries/charger that's protecting me from myself?

I mostly think of my battery as a built in UPS and not as a gas tank.