Right, I found this calculator, which I find a bit easier to understand than Sheldon (unless I'm looking at the wrong Sheldon page?)

If I'm making sense of this correctly, I would gain quite a bit of range with a compact double (1st gear at 33 gear inches vs 44 gear inches as it is now).

However, if I were to find a 5 speed freewheel with a bigger range (say up to 32T), I would see a significant improvement for less cash/bother (39 gear inches).

Does this sound about right? I have a hard time translating this into a real functional difference in my mind, although the cadance MPH calculator on that page helps a bit.

Now, I see that there's a freewheel that fits the bill on Harris Cyclery's site - is this thing worth the 50 bucks?