I refuse to believe the Missions designers intentions was that characters would not have access to high-availability gear without paying triple-cost. If that was the case, the nuyen rewards would need be roughly triple to give any gear-oriented characters a hope of progression.
Notably, this is mainly only an issue if you compare primarily gear-progression characters (cybersams, deckers, riggers) with primarily karma-progression characters (adepts, mages, aspected magicians, technomancers, mystic adepts). With the rewards from two Missions-legal runs, a karma-progression character can easily submerge or initiate, which provides them a large, tangible character progression. While I don't think that gear-progression needs to be as close, it needs to be close enough that, over the course of 10 Missions-legal runs, a gear-progression character progresses about as much as a karma-progression character.
Note that this is not to say that primarily gear-or-karma-progression archetypes do not benefit from the other resource - they just generally benefit less. A rigger can get an additional die in one of his skills for 14 karma. A mage can get the ability to quicken all of their spells and quicken one spell for 14 karma. A street sam can get a significant implant (like a Pain Editor) for 50,000 nuyen. An adept can get a dice or two more with a melee weapon.