The Rohloff is on my wish list too but I cannot justify the price. As an alternative for a front derailleur there other options as well. I am huge fan of the combo hubs. Internal gear hubs with a cassette. Sachs/SRAM had these in the 90s with 3 speed hub and a 7 speed cassette. 21 gears on the rear wheel. It was called the Spectro 3x7. I still have two bikes with that hub. They built these into the early 2000s when they replaced them with the SRAM Dual Drive. Although SRAM completely stopped making internal gear hubs you can still find new never used Dual Drive hubs. I think they were available as 3x7, 3x8 and 3x9.
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/dualdrive-shifter.html
Sturmey Archer still makes a similar hub. 3 speed internal gear hub combined with a 8 or 9 speed cassette.
https://www.sturmey-archer.com/en/pr.../cs-rk3-silver
The 3 speed internal gear hub basically replaces your front derailleur.
Another option might be a 12 speed cassette. I bought a used Lightning Phantom recumbent a few months ago which came with a 1x12 SRAM set up with the purpose to add a motor to the crank case. So far I have not added a motor yet but actually like this 1 x 12 more than the 3x9 setup on my other Phantom. Meaning I don't miss my front derailleur at all.
There are folks out there who recommend using a 12 speed cassette on ebikes: