[NLRS] How much receiver gain is the "right" amount for a transverter?

[David Palm]

 I've been back to working on the various projects I have here and, with
the acquisition of a Pluto SDR (awesome!) and using the spectrum analyzer
at work, have been able to measure the receiver path gain on a couple of
commercial transverters.

As I mentioned in an earlier email, I have an old KK7B-style 1296
transverter built by DEM that has 16.5 dB of receiver gain.  Just today I
measured my Elecraft 222 MHz transverter's Rx gain and measured 18 dB at
222 and 19 dB at 223 MHz.

In on-line sources I find these various references to receiver path gain:

Kuhne 222 MHz transverter: "The overall gain in the receiver path was
deliberately set to only 15 dB, as even high-performance HF transceivers
have still large signal problems at 28 MHz."

Kuhne 70/144/432 MHz transverters: 25 dB gain

SSB electronics, 50 - 432 transverters: 20 dB gain

SG Lab 1296 transverter:  -5 to +10 dB, adjustable

Q5 Signal transverter: 20 dB

So my questions are: what is the "right" amount of Rx gain in a transverter
and why?  And what happens when you have too much?

Thanks and 73,

David  W9HQ