Why yes I am! LOL and I don't see the point in going so slow I would no longer be able to balance and would just fall over. (isn't that the point of recumbents anyways? going fast? (comfort too, but speed is the fun part) after all, I think almost all recumbent owners also own other bikes, that are probably already well geared for the hills)

I have NEVER used the internal chainring - I could remove it from my 1997 mountainbike or off of my 2006 recumbent and sell them as parts removed from new bikes if I wanted to. I didn't use it while climbing Rougemont and Mt-Tremblant on my mountainbike (a heavy 1997 Specialized aluminum RockHopper), I haven't needed one to climb that 18% grade in St-Hyppolite with my racing bike in a 42x(26?) gear, the front wheel lifted off the ground on some pedal strokes if I didn't lean forward, so that's pretty much as steep as you'll go I suppose... it's never been a problem for me.

So I don't have a use for a granny gear... and for those who need one nothing stops you from gearing the rear cassette differently... instead of having 11-26 or 11-28 with a triple front, you could have 11-32 or 11-36 with a double front compact crankset instead and have a similar lowest gear... I'd much rather have a better Q-factor with symmetrically placed pedals (in relation to centerline), instead of an extra chainring I'll never use with lowest gears I never use. Swapping a couple of cassette chainrings pales in comparison to messing up your Qfactor with a triple in order to get lower gearing.

As a matter of fact, if you changed from a triple, with a small chainring of 34 and a rear sprocket of 28, to a compact double, with a small chainring of 36 and a rear sprocket of 32, you'd get a smaller gear with the new compact crankset (and even smaller with 36x36). Of course, it all depends on what you're comparing, my point is that with some very standard cassette combinations you can still get the same low gear as you had with a triple. My belief is that the benefits strongly outweigh any counter-arguments, when it comes to a double compact versus a triple.

BlazingPedals, if you are the guy in your avatar, you certainly don't look like the kind of man who needs a granny-gear either!