You’d want to also consider, that desktop components were not created for 24/7 usage. My previous motherboard died by overheating south bridge – it likely wouldn’t happen in a desktop usage, but 24/7 didn’t let it cool ever. The chip has a small ‘volcano’ in the middle now.

Well, hardware-designed dock station would work, sure. They don’t require any additional software. For example, for M1 MacBook Air with MacOS there are two options: HW docks would work out of the box, no software or tinkering needed. But you are limited with only one external display (Apple decided so). SW docks (DisplayLink) work great and give you multiple displays and stuff, but require drivers. And also after reboot you have to log in before dock can launch its software companion. Also, since it’s software, OS updates can cause malfunction and/or incompatibility. I expect situation be more or less the same with all OS.

That’s true for any OS though. DisplayLink dock is software dock and must have proper drivers installed to work.