I'm sure I'm going to take flak for saying this, but now I'm a bit lost. Since as someone pointed out air+fuel at a given F/A ratio or A/F ratio if you want means that for a given amount of air, whether dense or thin requires a proportionate amount of fuel, then how does making an engine turn over faster at a given road speed (aka higher numerical gears), which pushes more air+fuel mixture through the system improve mileage? If that were true, our best mileage would be in first gear if taken to the logical conclusion!
The only way I can see that happening is if you are so deep into the throttle with the lower numerical gears that you are at a higher F/A mixture, therefore using more fuel for the smaller amount of air+fuel mixture being pushed through the engine.
Now if you want more "Oomph", aka acceleration aka hill-climbing ability aka power etc. in a given gear, then it makes sense to use the higher numerical gears.