How not to design electronics

I'm sitting here on a phone conference with some people in Japan, using my home cordless phone connected to a headset. I'm at a desk, near a charging station, and the battery on the phone is showing low power levels. I'm not moving around and don't plan to, so I figured I'd drop the phone on the charger to make sure the battery doesn't die while I'm talking.

You totally know where this is going, don't you? As soon as I place the phone on the charger it disconnects the call. The call with about eight other people, most of whom are in Japan. What kind of electronics design prevents me from using a phone at the same time that I recharge it?! Come to think of it, I can't think of any other piece of gadgetry I own that doesn't allow me to operate it while it's being charged. This is also the same phone system that doesn't let me use two handsets on the same call (which my last cordless system did let me do). So if I'm in a call and the battery is running low, there doesn't appear to be either a way to swap to another phone or to charge the one I'm using.

AT&T E1813B user rating: 5 Stars of Sucking out of a possible 5.

Oh, yeah, and they're ugly as sin.