Originally Posted by MRT2

That is true enough of a 7 speed, but maybe not 11 speed? I have a 3 x 9 and a 12 - 27 road cassette setup right now that I am generally satisfied with, though even with this setup I use the middle chainring most of the time. Looking at a gear inch calculator, the low gear on my middle ring is 36 gear inches, and the high is 81. From time to time, I will use the big ring on long flats or downhill but seldom go all the way over to 48 x 12. Usually I go to about 48 x 13 or 48 x 14, or between 93 and 99 gear inches. When climbing hills, I do sometimes use the small chainring, which takes me down as low as 26 to 33 gear inches. Hypothetically, if I were to completely change my drivetrain to a 1 x 11 setup with a 39 tooth chainring and an 11 - 36 cassette, that gives me a range of gears from 29 to 96 gear inches. Moreover, this setup gives me 4 useful gears between 45 and 70 gear inches (which is what I use probably 75 or 80% of the time now), to the 5 gears in that range I have on my current set up.

I could see such a setup as even more beneficial for some recreational cyclists using compact doubles, where frequently, they find themselves constantly shifting between the small and big chainrings, because the 34 tooth chainring is too small and the 50 tooth, too big.