what bars are you thinking of doing? Flat, risers, those Jones type ones, trekking bars or drops? Off topic but curious.

If I were doing a lot of off road I'd not be keen on bar ends and find trigger shifters to still be nicest when on loose surfaces and want/need all the control of hands on grips or wherever.

I ride an old 8 spd mtn bike as a commuter and whatnot, but I dont see why you are hesitant to use at least 9. Why not have closer ratios for the same cassette spread?

as for cranks, I would still go traditional mtn triple for the advantages of triples, and 42/32/22 still are a great range for riding with stuff on your bike, especially off road as the average speeds are never going to be as high as on pavement (generalization but you know what I mean) and the mid 32 ring will be used the vast majority of the time, from pretty much 10-30kph easily, which really is the area we are riding in the most.

This speed range is from my experience with a 26in triple bike, in fact I just started riding it again after being on my drop bar bike since late spring early summer, and on my mostly flat commute, mid ring really does fit in that range, although I do spin faster than some people.

with an ogre, and 700 wheels, the gearing will be higher than my 26in wheels, so this is a help if you are concerned about the mid ring being too low, but my experience really does show a 32 would be good.

what experience do you have mtn biking and lower gearing, mtn cranks and such? My feeling is dont drink the Double Koolaid, a mtn 42-28 won't have as low gears, and triple fd work perfectly fine if set up normally, so I my experience is that triple fd's work perfectly fine and give you a nicer range than a double, especially given you're bike will be 20lbs heavier or whatever with a load.

Again, what experience with this sort of intended riding do you have and with what gearing?