If you have over 40GB remaining on the 1+1, it means that you probably aren't even using 10GB of storage and that's between user data and applications.
That's why the SD Card is non-factor for you, on a 1+1 as well as on a Note. In your case, even without the SD Card, the Note 3 would still have about as much internal storage left over as a Galaxy S5 has on first boot.
Yes, SD Cards are not that important when you have a phone with 32GB or more storage in it. A lot of people on tech forums crowd out the normal people by making more noise, but the fact and the matter is that's generally how the market is these days.
The OEMs pay very little for the storage upgrades, so even though they charge less per tier upgrade than, for example, Apple; most people are still getting super hosed in the pricing for extra storage they'll probably never use.
Secondly, offloading stuff to the SD Card can improve the performance and shelf life of the phone. A lot of apps do a lot of caching and offloading those writes to the SD Card is useful in that respect.
A lot of companies are pricing down really low, because frankly, it's the only way to get people to care about their handsets. If the 1+1 was priced like a One M8, Galaxy S5, or even a G3 barely anyone here would be talking about it. The only reason most people show interest in those phones from the lesser known entities is cause they severely underprice the established players.
And that's good for them, but it is also bad overall for the industry as a whole because it's accelerating the race to the bottom, which will put device lines in a perpetual treadmill of "mediocre" upgrades because the profits are dropping while R&D and Marketing costs are rising thanks to a more competitive/cutthroat market and the fact that "new processor" is no longer a reason to buy a new phone since they all run fantastically, even those from 2 years ago...
