Back in the first half of the 20th century, Exide made a very different kind of forklift battery. The plates were made of a series of tubes they were about an inch in diameter. Different number and length of the tubes were used for different ampere hour ratings. Each plate was assembled with a lead header bar and looked almost like a conventional battery plate. Each tube consisted of a round bar of antimony lead about 1/4 inch in diameter surrounded by either positive or negative lead paste and covered by a perforated plastic tube. Each plate was lead welded to a collected bar that ended as either a positive or negative post. The system worked fairly well, except the the tubes behaved like chimneys while the battery was being charged and a great deal of hydrogen gas was being generated. They consumed a lot of water in the process of charging and so water had to be added every day. All of this was a little before my time in the seventies, but I can see that this would be a useful tool to prevent over filling which causes battery case corrosion and diluted electrolyte.