After my first winter in York, during which the transmission on my touring bike took an absolute pounding due to the sheer amount of salt that was put on the roads (in stark contrast to recent events, it seems) I decided that gears-inna-can, whether there's 3, 8 or 11 of 'em, or singlespeed (fixed or free, depending on conditions) were the way forward, if only from an ease of maintainence standpoint eg. take grotty old chain off, clean crap off bike, put nice new chain on, lather, rinse and repeat.
Being the tight-fisted git that I am, it's easier and cheaper to buy and replace a bunch of chains than a complete transmission
A full Super Record (or similar) groupset on a winter bike does strike me as being extreme overkill, although I have no doubt that the owner of that bike has his reasons for doing so, and the bike shop certainly weren't complaining