Yeah, a compact crank has a girly man vibe to it. But from what I'm reading the purpose was really to allow you to have a more fine-tuned range for your cassette/freewheel. With a big ass 53 in the front, most people will never use their 15, 13, 12, 11 cog gears in the back. For that's a third or more of the total range!
For what it's worth, I almost never use my small front gear anyway. I hate shifting the front, so I make do with shifting only the back almost all the time (I use non-indexed, old-skool downtube shifters). The advantage of a compact crank with a small range freewheel is, it seems, that I can find 90% of the gears I will normally use without shifting the front chainring at all. And I have more fine-tuning options within that range.
Shimano makes a freewheel (called
Mega Range, available at Harris) with an unorthodox 11-13-15-18-21-24-34 range (yes, that's a 10-cog jump at the end). The idea is that once you've wimped out, you might as well wimp out all the way.
This seems like a fun and useful setup for me: The Shimano Mega-range rear freewheel and a compact 50x36 crank. It would give me (a) as much high-speed power as my current 53x14 setup (probably more), (b) a smaller range of gears for the majority of my riding so I can fine tune my gearing better for each situation, and (c) it's got that mega 34 in the back which, with the 36 in the front, would enable ultimate girlyman power on the toughest climbs. I gain more at the bottom, I gain more at the top, and I gain mor e options all across the middle. Seems like a good deal.