I refuse to ride with people running front Derailleurs, both for noise, and in principal.
Oh, fahn hell Moorey. I wanted to bring down my 3x Heckler to Buninyong for a Moorey ride one day.
Now it looks like I'll have to sit out at the end of the driveway and shed huge amounts of tears about 3x from getting a talk to the hand from the Orange Meister.
I rarely have dropped chains and either 3x or 1x. Clutched mechs are awesome and do make a big difference in drivetrain sanity.
I don't see why the big hate for a front mech since they have been set and forget items for me in the past. Sure you get some noise when it gets chunky but not a big deal for me.
I have a 30/46t on the TRC and it works well and very quiet which is its main winning point for me plus having a 0.65 ratio as a bailout gear. Larger sized mid range cassettes are just stupidly heavy unsprung weight. Let's see if 13 speed arrives and how heavy it will be.