The middle ring of a triple crank is for most cyclists the only ring they need to use most of the time. I maintain a fairly high cadence most of the time, so I rarely shift to the big ring for my riding, which includes lots of hilly terrain in Baltimore County, and I've used the small ring maybe three or four times this year at most.
Standard (i.e., spec'ed from the factory) double rings are compromised by having too wide a gap between the tooth counts for staying in one ring or the other, unless you're willing to cross-chain frequently. Decades of riding old-school road bikes trained me to avoid cross-chaining. Newer drivetrains tolerate cross-chaining better than the old setups, but it's still best avoided.