Ideal, for my commute, would probably be something like 44-30 with a 12-27 cassette. Sugino makes the crank with a proper road chainline, but it's more expensive than I'm willing to accept.

I started putting together my 1x10 last night. It's going to start with a 39T chainring (because that's what I had on hand) and an 11-36 cassette. If I like it well enough to get a narrow-wide chainring for it I'll probably get a 40T.

The tricky thing about a 1x system on my particular commute is that for 99% of it an 11-25 cassette would be ideal, but for that last 1% I need something around 30 inches. So there are two or three cogs on the 11-36 cassette that I won't use much, meaning I get something like 7-speed gear spacing for most of the ride just to accommodate that one hill. That's probably not too bad though.