There are plenty of USB docks but the couple I have experimented with present UDB/pseudo devices in place of legacy ports like com and parallel. More modern applications can work with those just fine for something simple like printers. However I am working with software that is used to interface with airplanes that was designed with MSDOS 6.22 and Windows 98. I have been lucky and using Dell Latitude E-Series laptops that support this legacy dock...I am looking into updating these laptops and it does not appear that newer models have a similar legacy dock. So USB would be the easier route to go but I need the replicator to present the ports as true physical ports to the OS so that they can be passed to virtual machines. 
USB dock that presents COM/Parallel port as physical ports
usb;laptop;docking stations