Yes, this is a good solution too.

I have a friend / extended-family-member who converted to laptops exclusively around 8 years ago, but still buys big power-house gaming laptops with large screens. Some creative desktop arrangements allow him to put down the laptop to use as a screen+mainbox, while plugging in large external drives, keyboard and mouse using eSata and USB ports, for whenever he wants to do some "real gaming".

Unplug all three and you've still got a laptop to carry around, though obviously it's a bit larger than most laptops and the laptop itself costs a lot more than normal.