I'm so tired of seeing people trying to figure out ever more ridiculous ways to come up with a gear arrangement in a 1x n gearing arrangement that works for particular niche types of riding.
I guess I was most infuriated by a recent piece on the Path Less Pedalled youtube channel where Russ is fitting an 11-50t 12speed sprocket to a bike in order to give him a decent spread of gears.
A back of the envelope calculation, confirmed by a bit of tapping numbers into Sheldon Brown's gear calculator, suggested he could achieve what he wants with a nice 10 speed triple and cheap and cheerful Shimano MTB or even long cage road derailleurs. Maybe involving a J-Tek problem solver to handle the gear shifter incompatibility between Shimano's road and MTB shifters.
Anyway, it's one of the reasons why I run Campagnolo on my bike, because I can run a Campag triple with 10 speed rear to give me 30 speeds with all the usual overlaps and redundancies. However, it's cheap, reliable and it works. The only annoyance is that 10 speed only allows for a 13-29 rear cassette. Sometimes I'd like a little broader spread of gears...
I was absent-mindedly thinking that I could by an 11 speed right shifter from Campagnolo, and run 33 speeds by installing an 11 speed cassette on my existing wheel and replacing the chain and rear mech. This is still cheaper than buying one of the crazy expensive 11-50 cassettes that have crept onto the market (although the Sunrace models are surprisingly cheap).
An alternative would be to swap my rear cassette carrier for Shimano, add a J-tek shift-mate and a 10 speed Shimano MTB cassette.
It's fun to think these things through and Campagnolo triples are still a possibility in their 10 speed range and widely available.