Do you boot up the spare one now and again or have you simply removed the battery and bagged it? Just interested as I'm considering a similar move with X series Thinkpads.
The battery is removed and placed in a box. It's a second hand 9-cell battery with 12 recharge cycles (Paid £20 for it!) so it's been charged to 80% and will be maintained at that where possible. I've investigated rebuilding the packs as well in the future and it's not impossibly difficult.
I'd definitely go for it. There is a vacuum of quality hardware now. Even the latest Lenovo T/X series are cruddy machines.
I'll go back to desktops if the situation doesn't improve by 2020.
I hope to be using a dockable phone then with a mechanical switch keyboard and a monitor the size of a window... we shall see. Thanks.