If I was going to do this, it would be at the laptop end, because that's were I'm sitting.

How long until the power plug, or the receptacle in the laptop, wears out?

How expensive is labor to fix the receptacle, compared to the cost and convenience of replacing a battery?

Unless the OS manages this for me (and maybe it does behind my back?), I'm not going to bother. But many thanks for the interesting writeup.