Low gears are good, I like them as much as low weight because they make the cycling more fun.
When I got back into cycling about 10 years ago (my mid-life crisis and way cheaper than a porsche) I defaulted to the setup I had on my Claud Butler Majestic back in 1977 which was a saddlebag and a handlebar bag and various racks to strap stuff to.
Low gears are good, but not silly low. I mean with a 30" gear loaded, you can pretty much climb anything up to a 16% grade with a light bike and load. The reason why people need lower gears is because they are carrying too much crap. My CX bike has a 25" GI as low and that's very low in my preference but good to have a bail out gear; 27" would be good enough for me too. What people do not realize is that, it's ok to walk up a hill with the bike and it's probably easier. I mean, it's easier to walk a 21 lbs bike with a 20lbs load than a 38lbs bike with a 50 to 80lbs load! When I suggest to people that walking is cool and probably faster than biking up a steep hill; I can really tell what load they carry. If they struggle up a modest hill walking and having to keep hitting their shins on the pedals, they are not walking upright. They are straining themselves to push up the bike, because it's heavy. You don't strain yourself pushing a light bike up a steep hill do you? So, they need low insane 16 or 14" gears just so that they could make it over the hill on their trucks.
I find that touring light is great. In fact, some of my friends were inspired by what I did with my carbon bike and the touring I did that blew them away (I was constantly way upfront) that 2 of my friends had switched from a heavy touring bike setup to a lighter setup and had been extremely happy with it.
I sometimes do luxury camping tours, but it's usually short and usually with friends who want the whole 9 yards -- bacon and eggs with coffee, pancakes etc.. I have a trailer for that and my bike which tows it has a low 20" gear to climb hills with. But for the most part, I tour light. It's better that way!
However, I still have friends who evangelizes the virtue of the 4 pannier system and claim that ONLY REAL TOURIST tour with 4 panniers. Suggesting that anything less than 4 is not real. I guess some people have this ego thingy that they seemed to like to inflate. Sadly, their followers suffer. There is a place for 4 panniers and that would be expedition and overseas where you need to carry more provisions and parts.