I have pretty good, intelligent chargers and I'm fairly observant of charge and discharge rates of particular packs. Still the things just fail. That said
I will add that I have had only two failures in my lifetime so far. One was my fault the other, the more recent was just a defective pack.
The packs have been very reliable over the years. Still, the least valuable model I have is far more valuable than any battery pack or the
inconvenience ( albeit it annoying ) of removing one. To me the choice was a simple one.
I have both circuit breakers and fuses in my 1/10 models to help protect against faults
If it works for some to charge in place good for them; they're far more brave than I am.
The other reason I have for having my packs out of the models is I use them both in my 1/16 as well as my 1/10
models for the starter, turret drive and other functions. I try to cycle them but I'm not religious about it. I use NiMH exclusively.
Jerry