The spacing doesn't look that bad with a 50-34. You get this spacing: 122, 112, 103, 90, 84, 79, 76,70, 61, 57, 54, 48, 42, 36, 32, 28. (gear inches, and ignoring essentially redundant ratios)

In the ranges where most folks do most of their riding, you might like something between the 70 and the 61, but other than that it looks pretty well spaced.

And if you want tree climbing lows, there is always going to be some tradeoff.