I think with the docks it's a no-win situation, from what I can tell the surface docks contain a display adapter (maybe 2 now for the new one since it supports

I think with the docks it's a no-win situation, from what I can tell the surface docks contain a display adapter (maybe 2 now for the new one since it supports multiple displays?), a NIC, a USB hub, charging circuitry, and some other random stuff. The price of all that seems to add up. I originally assumed the video out on the surface dock was just passthrough but it's not, it has its own display hardware with its own quirks and you update the firmware on it to change the behavior in some cases. In my experience a comparable USB-C dock of decent quality for my macbook is pretty expensive too, though certainly not surface dock level. I think this is just the situation we're in with how laptops and docks interact now. If more of the smarts were in the laptop than the dock the dock would probably be a lot cheaper, but that seems like it might drive up the price of the laptops.