[switchbak]

If we had halfway-usable power management back in the day, it would have a lot more sense (for occasional use) as it would be idle/sleeping most of the day.

But we most certainly didn't, especially in Linux - and most people ended up having to leave them on. Heck, even the super pimped-out Linux machine I made in 2012 still has occasional issues with suspend/resume (I could probably go on a week long patch fest to try to fix it, but no thanks - I bought a macbook instead :)