[sgc]

Any inverter is expensive. I am currently pricing out a small system and just found out today the battery ready inverters don't cost more. In fact I am going without batteries due to a niche use case, but the inverter will be battery ready just because it (SolarEdge) is the best deal overall for the system. You are right about battery cost, but just having one that can get you (frugally) through the night would be a world different than just being shafted.

As to battery requirement, I can't see how attaching a wire to a panel would cause it to burn up. The wire would charge and then it would be the same thing as if the panel was disconnected with the same amount of latent charge in the panel.