I rather have closer gear range between gears rather than having very large gear spread.
As for climbing slopes, i can always use my inner chain ring, although its very rare for me to use since my wheels are small enough to climb slopes with ease.
You can see the table below:
This is your gear range for verge P9:
Your gear spread is very big. You must be on hamster mode (spinning way too high cadence) in one gear and then find it hard to pedal on the next higher gear. e.g. out spinning at 16t but find 14t hard to pedal, causing you to be slow.
Normally at higher speed, you want the gear ratio to be as packed... Now look at my gear ratio table:
The ones in green are my sweet spot...
My friend was struggling to cycle on Verge P9. But once he tried my close range cassette setup, he can fly easily because he can always maintain reasonable cadence at 17, 16, 15, 14t.