Okay gentleman, while I must say I've been aggressive in this pissing match, let us get back to answering the original question. OP is looking at a 10 speed rear drivetrain. Plain and simple, many of you who are so steadfast in running a triple are also running 8 speed drive trains. as for the talk about cadence when you shift rings on a triple, I don't understand why that individual doesn't double shift. That is one thing I do enjoy about a triple, generally speaking if i"m in my middle ring and a big hill is coming up, I can shift down to my granny but shift to a smaller cog in the rear at the same time and keep my cadence in a good place but then as I hit the hill I don't have to worry about shifting the front, I can just drop down the cassette. Same thing when approaching a downhill if im in the middle ring, shifting right up to the big ring might be too much gear but if I simultaneously shift to a bigger cog in the rear, I'm still at a smooth cadence.

With doubles it's different. With doubles, you tend to need to use more of the cassette and when it is time to shift to a bigger chain ring, you may have to shift multiple gears in the back to be right where you want to be. One nice thing about doubles is cross chaining is far less of an issue. I cross chain all the time on my double bike when riding with my racier friends on aggressive training rides because I don't want to risk dropping the chain shifting to the small ring up front. My double drive train has no issue with going big/big or small/small combo. I don't even have to use the trim feature on my front deraileur although it is there if the need arises. A lot of the people I know that ride triple cranks ride them with a 28 as the largest cog in the rear and occassionally a 32 and never a 36 If I'm not mistaken a 36 tooth isn't even available in 8 speed cassettes either and the ones that have a 34 it's more of a "bailout" to the 34 so you have a massive jump from 26-34. So for a lot of people 10 speed drivetrain means you are easily able to get yourself a 32 and a 36 tooth cog while keeping reasonably tight spacing. So here is the way I see it, most bikes that are sold as triples, tend to not come with as wide of a cassette standard. Bikes sold as doubles often do have a wider cassette on the back. So yes, if you want super ultimate range, get a 22/32/44 mtb crank and run a 11-36 10 speed cassette. but in reality, most people running that crank end up with an 11-28 and part of that is that a 22/36 isn't very useful to many people. Many people would just as soon walk than actually use a 22/36 combo that only gets them 5mph at 90rpm cadence and 2.9 mph at 60rpm cadence.

In conclusion, yes, the maximum range you could get is with a triple and 10 speed wide range cassette, however, that does not mean you will find all of those gears very useful and if you setup a double crank correctly, you will find that you will have the same range as many peoples triple setups and not be at a disadvantage.