Bingo! I find the arguments about compact gearing offering the same range to be completely missing the point.

The bike I was referring to when I started this thread has a 34-29 low gear. The day I started the thread I rode it up a hill that peaks at 16% grade. It would get me up an even steeper hill if I needed it to. And the 50-12 top gear is easily enough for my purposes. The range of gears isn't the problem.

As for over-thinking it, it's not as if I put my gears into a calculator, looked at the numbers and said, "Hey, that's a problem." Rather I took it out on the road, concluded that I didn't like the experience and then put the numbers into a calculator to try to understand the problem better. That may still be over thinking it, but I'm pretty sure it's not an imaginary problem.