I tried 32:16 (29er) at swinley, got up everything apart from the sandy climb out the bottom of 15 upto deer stalker. But it still felt over geared everywhere else too. Now running 34-20 (comparable to 32-19) and it feels much better, the limit at the top end seems to coincide nicely with the speed I’d stop pedaling at naturaly on singletrack and start pumping/concentrating on maintaining speed in corners rather than pedaling through them etc, and its just tiring enough on the flat at 90-100 rpm to make fire roads and commuting Ok.
I’m actualy about 5 minutes a lap quicker on the lower gears!
Just get a worn cassette and pull it appart, it wont kill the freehub in one ride (or at all if its a steel freehub). I found the difference between 34-19 and 34-20 was negligable whilst riding, but made a big difference to how tired I felt after ~20miles, so worth playing about (and going up/down a gear as fitness comes and goes).
Genealy seems better to see how low you can go rather than high, better to be geared efficiently on a 10 min climb and coast the decent and be fresh for the next climb than gear for a 30s sprint in the decent and be knackered and overgeared for the following climb.