Gear ratios and driveability

A little off track here, but what I don’t understand are folks that won’t lay into it out of a red light but see no problem winding the motor up to 3k or 4k on the freeway. Talk about efficiency...
Short term high rpm, maybe ok.
Long term high rpm, maybe recipe for disaster?
Call me a coward, but I'm really not sure what my engine is good for, and I don't want to find out the bad way!