Coming back to the gearing, 39x26 is not extremely high. My singlespeed is 38x16 (64" ish) and that's reasonably spinny for a SS gear.
I'll admit I can't climb stuff steeper than about 10% on it, but that's partly due to the amount of lard I'm dragging up the hill
It may be worth riding your bike for a bit to see how much of a problem it really is before sepnding money changing bike bits. If all else fails there's always the 24" gear anyway
