Most tools/consumer grade lithium devices come with comparably very low current chargers. The devices don't draw near the amperage we draw in RC. Many also run lithium-ion cylindrical cells, which by nature are more durable than lithium-polymer cells we use for RC, but they aren't as energy dense, so they require more space per Mah. My M12 milwaukee packs have 18650 cells in them as do all my dell laptops. They have circuitry in them to monitor/prevent over charging and over discharging, either in the packs themselves or in the devices that use them, or both. The chargers that charge them range from 1/1.5Amp (dremel 12v, milwaukee 12v) to 5Amp (laptop). The packs are also wired so they are always balance charged. The user can't charge them any other way.
With the cells used for RC, there is zero circuit protection in the packs themselves. They rely on the charger to charge properly, the esc to stop discharging when at a certain point and the user to know how to plug them in and the limits the individual packs are capable of.
Lithium-polymer cells don't like resting at full or empty. It's just how they are chemically designed. When they sit on a shelf at full charge, it causes the internal resistance to prematurely go up. When IR goes up, this is effectively "wear" on the cells. The higher it goes, the less output they can provide efficiently.
They also self discharge due to the IR. Even when new, there is still some IR in them, so they will self discharge, but slowly. If they are left fully depleted (<2.8V), they run the risk of going below a safe threshold where they damage themselves. This is why whenever your not using a lipo, they should be put to 50% charge (storage charge, 3.8-3.85v per cell) and checked every month or so they aren't used to make sure the voltage of each cell doesn't go too far down. If it does, then you need to put them on the charger back to storage charge.
I don't know why, but many RC chargers will allow you to charge a lipo without balancing it. Cells within a pack, or many packs, don't charge or deplete at the exact same rate. When you use a pack, if you check the voltage at the end of the run, they will vary. With lipo's, we live in a range of 3.2V-4.2V per cell. When I take my packs off my trucks, they tend to vary between 3.3-3.6v per cell. Never are they the same. If the cells within a multi-cell pack differ, the charger needs to be put into "balance" mode so that it charges them all to the proper amount, be it 3.85v for storage or 4.2v for full.
In that same vein, the ESC needs to be lipo capable (or you need a lipo alarm on the packs when using them) so that you don't run them down too far. Most run to 3.4-3.5V if possible. Many ESC's handle this on their own, but they do so by doing the math of the quantity of cells and total voltage. So it's not 100% accurate. If you have a 3S lipo, fully charged at 4.2V per cell you have 12.6V. The ESC sees that it's between a certain range and knows you have 3 cells plugged in, so it has a low voltage cutoff circuit (LVC) in it that will stop the output of power to the motor when it reaches a certain level. Some are preset, others let you pick a range or value. If you pick 3.5V, then it will shut down when the total voltage is 10.5V. It doesn't know that you have one cell at 3.3, one at 3.7 and one at 3.5, it just knows the total is 10.5V. So if you set your LVC to 3.0V-3.2V, you can run the risk of having individual cells dropping below 3V, which is unsafe for lipo's.
And... I probably typed too much.
