True, true... I think the days of assembling individual cogs on a freewheel went the way of 5-speed hubs. For example, the 11-tooth cog nowadays I believe is essentially the last 'nut' on a cassette.

But, there could be a market for an easy-rider freewheel that emphasizes closer spacing in the more highly-frequented midrange, even if at the sacrifice of top-end corncob gears. It's not an issue with triple cranks but for lower-geared compact double cranks with 11-speed hubs there seems to be the temptation to do-it-all from high to low whereas having more choices would be great.

Back in the 'old days' a triple with a 5-speed hub was called a 15-speed; but, many of the gears weren't especially useful compared to having about 16 evenly-spaced gears using a compact crank that would easily accommodate most riding situations I'd encounter. And, all of those unique gears could be accessed without a lot of double and cross shifting -- seems tailor-made for a Di2 system approach.