I bought myself the full sized Yubikey instead of the nano because I'm very much of the opinion that the inconvenience is a feature, not a bug — do you _really_ want to leave your Yubikey attached to the device that holds your password manager too?
That's a great point about not leaving the YubiKey plugged into the laptop all the time. But the company actually suggests that people get a Nano and leave it plugged in for convenience. Maybe that isn't the best security advice!
Thanks for the pointer to the USB-C YubiKey Nano - it looks like a fine solution for the dongle problem.
That said, the problem you described is a temporary one — while not as neat as the USB-A variant, there is a USB-C Yubikey Nano. https://www.yubico.com/product/yubikey-4-series/#yubikey-4c-...