I have one dock at home, one dock at work. The docks stay connected to the peripherals and I just have to plug in one cable into the laptop to connect everything. I much prefere that over having to plug in 3-4 different cables in the past.
I have one of the more recent models. When I sit down at my desk, I just plug it into a Thunderbolt dock anyway, through a single port. All those extra ports just sit unused, despite having a USB-A keyboard and mouse, Ethernet jack, and 4k monitor at that desk. Plus the dongle provides power to the laptop.
I do use the SD reader from time to time, though. I used to have an external reader that was a bit unwieldy on the laptop, but it was also a requirement from when I was shooting pictures on a CompactFlash, which has never had a built in reader on any laptop.
My m1 MacBook is my first after a lifetime of thinkpads and dells etc.
For about a week, I thought I was short a few ports. Then I got a £20 dongle that takes 1 Port, gives me : 4 usb A, 1 USB C, all the card slots, HDMI and Ethernet.
You can plug anything into it. Life has never been easier.