I totally agree! Cameras are tools, and tools are made to be used. Good tools deserve to be treated with respect and used properly. But like all tools, they have a life span. Appreciate your tools, but don't get too attached.
If I have one lens or two in moderate focal lengths, I'm usually not even looking for pictures that would require different focal lengths. Sometimes I see something farther away and shoot with the intention of cropping later. If I encounter a wider scene than I can capture, I try to zero in on a detail that I can that can help convey the same feeling. If not, you just have to let a shot go. At my host's house in Portland, the 50mm wasn't wide enough to capture some of what I wanted to in the house, so I looked for what I could fit. You work with what you've got. I shot that whole trip on one type of black and white film and rated every roll at ISO 800 so that when it was pushed in development all of the pictures would have a consistent look. There were some times when ƒ/2 was not wide enough, so when the light levels dropped, I shot for as long as I could handhold, looked for pools of light, shot anticipating motion blur or just stopped shooting for the evening and enjoyed myself.
In about 2010, a (nonphotographer) workmate was horrified when he learned the cost of the M9 kit I carried around every day. 'Why would you take out something like that??' Yes, it was the most expensive thing I'd ever bought (and probably still is) but I bought it to document my life with high quality images. Can't do that if it's at home!
And people routinely drive, and ultimately wear out, cars that cost several times that. At least the camera kit is easy enough to protect and can be rebuilt/repaired when it does wear out. I don't get the idea of buying a nice camera and letting it sit on a shelf.
This is a good point about wide-angles. For landscapes, they are all about foreground. If you can't compose for some interesting foreground elements, it's not enough simply to get a lot of distant landscape and a horizon. Those are boring photos, often.
Absolutely my experience, too! The wide is comforting to have, for the possibility of getting everything in, but getting everything in rarely makes for good pictures.
My solution to this concern (back when I shot 35mm RF) was to have a Leica system for most shooting, and a Nikon RF system for when I went into dicey social situations or environments like rodeos where the conditions were brutal enough to warrant concern for damage. As an aside, the Nikons weathered anything I threw at them; I'm not so sure the Leicas would have.
Have you tried the Zeiss Biogon 25mm f2.8? Fantastic lens, and no way near the Leica 24mm in price. The only problem is the dreaded scuffy wobble that my copy has. But when it focused smoothly, it was my go-to walkaround lens.
