LM317 in parallel - media player laptop psu

I agree with you on liking them - while requiring more components to get a working solution, they are very capable and usually an excellent choice - in spite of being "old." There are still a surprising number of new designs that feature them - time proven and consistent performance.
 
Don't over think it. The regulation at the point of use, i.e. the laptop will be much worse than that because of the resistance of the lead, the plug/socket and the PCB print in the laptop. All those will swamp the regulation of the power supply output itself.
And the 19 V of the adapter is then regulated to many different voltages inside the laptop.