My experience is as a sailor where one may be thousands of miles from help. In truth, in our modern age we are not likely, especially with radios or cell phones available, to be that far from fairly quick aid. Nevertheless, my mentality is to be independent with the capacity to deal with serious emergencies on my own. My outlook is to consider consequences. It may well be that the consequence of a gear failure would be more than a PITA. The failure may sometimes be deadly. In my opinion, how much stuff you carry is dependent on those consequences and that will vary with the region, time of year, distance from timely aid and any number of considerations. For example, will there be children in your group, will you be far from a trailhead, is weather predicted to be fairly steady or is it likely to get worst throughout the day. There can be many considerations depending on the makeup of the group, time of day, terrain, weather and on and on. It is not so much the gear carried that is key, but judgment on the situation.