Road Fan is right about selecting the right cassette set-up, too, and matching it your chainset. I've persisted with the standard cassette offerings from various companies except Campy on my bikes, but there are some annoying and significant differences in the steps between cogs.

It might be wise to choose a lower level of cassette and carefully research what cog arrangement is available on each... then buy two cassettes that you can dismantle and then assemble with the right cogs for you. As far as I am aware, for example, both Campy and Shimano in their higher-quality ranges, and possibly SRAM, all have several of the larger cogs attached to a spider that doesn't allow tailored assembly.

I know that where I live, one bike shop has a big wall board of cogs that you can just saunter up to, select what you want and assemble your own. It may well be that you could stand fitting a touring-type cassette as the late Sheldon Brown detailed on his website.

I am not a user of the smaller, niche company cranksets, but certainly looking at those options is important if Q is an important factor in preserving your knees. I know also that there are options available for the Shimano road triple to take the granny ring down to 26T.