Here is my suggestion. I don't know how leaving the battery plugged in all the time will affect it, but if something like a power surge happened at your office and you didn't have the battery in, i bet you would probably regret it. Also note that batteries do wear out. eventually all batteries will get old and not work well. You said the old battery in your dell is a few years old, so although leaving it plugged in all the time may have harmed it, it is also and old battery and may just need to be replaced.
my overall suggestion would be to leave the battery in and just buy another battery when the time comes. This way, if something like a power surge happens, you wont loose anything. If you are not worried about this loss of data risk, then i think you can just leave the battery out of the laptop and put it back in when needed, personally i like being safe, so i keep mine in all the time even though my laptop rarely needs to run on battery only.
Or, have one battery for the laptop when its plugged into the wall, and one for portability when not plugged in. That way you get the best of both sides =)
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