Back in the day, I went to a lot of trouble to convert two different bikes to half-step-plus-granny gearing. I think it's a very sensible gear arrangement with five- and six-cog freewheels.

With modern drivetrains it's not really needed, but I used to think it was cool to do the "big shifts" with the RD and then "fine tune" the gearing by going for a half-shift with the FD. Seems backwards, but really a nice gear set up once you get used to it.