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Doesn't it depend on the travel between the stops? i.e. you won't have enough travel to select all gears on a gear cluster with lots of gears if you only have a derailleur made for fewer gears even with both the stops at their max

(I've just changed my gear setup but still dont understand it fully)

There is only short cage and long cage. The former is limited to small range road cassettes, while the latter can work with large range mtb/touring cassettes AND small range road cassettes.

The distance of lateral travel is the same on all of them, basically the span of the freehub.