It's not the same, but we have a bunch of r650s as work and they are loud as hell. I don't know if they're all like that or if it's just their specific configuration, but the fans are pretty damn loud. We also still have an r620 in the Room. That one isn't ass bad, but still annoying.

We have a bunch of r730s and r740s, those are pretty chill.

Not sure if it's possible, but check the bios/uefi for so.e battery management settings. If you can set a charge threshold of 60 percent, you can leave the battery in while charging basically forever. The only concern at that point would be heat, but you'd need the battery to sit at like 45c nonstop to see degradation.

I would opt for like 3 older lenovo mini pcs or something for home labbing. Guess it depends on what you want to do. I like making Promox clusters.

Honestly, i don't think it's really an issue. I've also had stuff shipped like that. Not just network devices, but servers, ssds, hdds, memory, etc. Never had anything doa with that kind of packing. I did get 5 hdds once in antistatic bags with no other packaging in the box. 2 doa, 2 more died eventually.