It seems that there is a lot of confusion around kohya-ss folder structure, repeats and epochs. As kohya-ss explained here, there are two reasons for repeats:

1. Balancing the number of training images with class (reg) images. Usually there are more class images than training images, so it is required to repeat training images to use all regularization images in the epoch.

For instance, if you have 10 training images and 100 class images, you repeat them 10 times (10x10 = 100), to compare them to all class images within each epoch.
2. Control ‘weight’ over folders. If you have a mix of high quality images and low quality images, you can set higher number of repeats for high quality images and lower for low quality.

It doesn’t make sense to repeat training images more times than needed for balance or weight within one epoch, otherwise you lose the flexibility of using epochs in your training.