[whiletruefork]

Depends on the team. I worked at a few different ones at MSFT, and generally the position was - two machines. Two desktops? Ok. Desktop + Laptop? Ok.

Most developers went for the desktop x2 plan. PM's almost always went desktop + laptop.

Again, this was for NEW machines. I had, at my peak, 6. 4 desktops and 2 laptops. Most of these were random old peices of hardware that were fit for recycling (but still fully functional!) that I used for whatever side projects I needed the hardware for.

Everyone always complains about their PC hardware - but not once did I see someone who actually needed a piece of hardware go without it. Monitor upgrades, for some reason, were much rarer and didn't make sense at all.