Anyone who consciously thought desktops were a good idea to move away from in the above case made an initial, much bigger mistake. (Again presuming it was a general lifestyle choice and not some necessity.)
It's as simple as answering the following question:
Would you rather have a) a tiny monitor with a bunch of expensive fragile dying-to-have-coffee-spilled-on-it shit jutting way out at you in the horizontal, always at a weird angle or too low or b) a couple of big beautiful monitors and loads of desk space? If you think you can have both, you're probably wrong. Even a nice dock setup requires you to do things like install brackets under the desk to shove your laptop in to, and disable its monitor lest it become a weird bastard screen full of junk you have no intention of looking at.
All the docks and laptop stands and extra monitors in the world can't solve the problem that laptops are broadly speaking, unpleasant to use. I think the only times I've actually been grateful to have my expensive and pretty laptop, are during power outs - watching netflix in bed. Though the whole setup is reliant on a well practiced construction of pillows and an external bluetooth speaker because no laptop has ever been made with speakers worth the power they draw.
If you can even remotely get away with not using one, don't use one.