but, since USB 3 B -> USB C charging spec changed by an order of magnitude, it would only be used for powering desktop PCs, electric stoves, washing machines, and electric cars
12v and 24v PoweredUSB has been a thing for ages
I got an old Dell recently and it has a PoweredUSB port on the docking station, did some digging and it turns out it's because Dell sold an external drive which required 12V, so they made it PoweredUSB, which means despite being an external drive, it requires the dock; there's no PoweredUSB on the laptop itself. Bizarre behaviour.
so, at least one of those laptops came with power USB, and that's one of the best external CD drives you can get, iirc.
I have a Latitude XT that does have PoweredUSB on the laptop itself and came with the external DVD drive. Not only that, but the external drive is removable from the shell, so you can replace it with other things - like a floppy drive! It was the same standard Dell used for their SFF desktops and bigger laptops of the era so you could swap all of those around. It was actually a pretty neat standard, and up until seeing this post I assumed it was some proprietary connector Dell designed...