I like that strategy. My gravel bike has a 113" top gear (48-11), a 22" low gear (24-28), and step sizes averaging about 8% in the interval from 55 to 96 inches (giving me decently tight spacing from the upper teens to around 30mph). It provides what's needed for speedy road pacelines and mountainous gravel roads, with just a 7-speed cassette.

If there is a guy in front of you, and they're a much stronger descender than you for whatever reason (to where you can't keep up by merely tucking and coasting in the draft), then that can matter. In that case, a big ring might actually be the ticket to getting to the bottom rested, since spinning super-high cadence is tiring. Getting dropped by 2 minutes also works, but then that 2 minutes might become much more than 2 minutes over the next several hours, if it means not working with someone else for the rest of the ride.