I imagine everyone's answer will begin with "It depends". I can only give you feedback on my workflow & setup.
My dev hardware is an external SSD (USB3) running Debian. I virtualized my dev environment using qemu/kvm.
I have several old laptops with no hard drives stationed at various offices. I just plug in, boot from the SSD and off to the races.
If I need a laptop while traveling, I just pull from the old laptops pile and remove it's hard drive. Good to go.
I do have minimum specs for the hardware:
1TB Samsung SSD (be sure the cable supports TRIM!)
16GB Memory (Virtualization)
nVidia graphics (hard to find those non-hybrid types)
decent screen size.
In addition to normal backups of the host & VM, I do a weekly image of the VM. This helps greatly against damage/loss of the SSD.
I suppose I fall into the artisanal category (postfix,dovecot,spamassassin,roundcube etc). In our case everyone runs mobile/desktop IMAP clients, web mail at least seems to be a "when all else fails" backup plan for quick emails.
I do have a specific beef with all the consolidated email providers. If one of them determines your SMTP server to be spam (false-positive), ALL of their clients now reject your email with little recourse for the admin. Just had this happen with a solution that rhymes with 365. Even their clients were clueless as to how to resolve it.
One step better is the Victorinox Swiss Army Manager Pocket Tool. Adds a bottle opener, philips driver & pen in a slightly thicker package.
http://a.co/gsud2iY
If you'd like to look at an alternative commercial solution in a similar vein, we offer Directify. It's offers self-serve management through a web interface. It works with any LDAP server and works on Linux & Windows platforms: https://www.dirwiz.com/directify
Can't recommend AMEX highly enough. Did the online application and got the card fedex'ed to me the next morning. Never an issue and points tie to Amazon directly. Best decision I've ever made.