Nights might make it easier? My problem was the stores were only open while I was working, I had basically a 1 hour window to get to the store before it closed at 6pm (thankfully just a week or so ago they are now open until 8pm).
It’s definitely a weird dilemma of if we all work the same hours, how does anyone with a job actually go to these places?
MXM GPUs never really caught on, and nobody builds their own laptop, it’s just not a thing like it is with desktops.
Best option if you want upgradable graphics would be an external Thunderbolt dock, but even then there are plenty of caveats there.