Interested thread! Like wfin2004, I used to take my road bike on the trails around the lake, more than 20 years ago when I was a kid. I have a cheap Huffy road bike and no one ever told not to ride a road bike on trials.
When I got back into cycling, I bought a nice road bike and been stuck to the pavement. I never took to mtb for some reason. I always like riding a road bikes. Recently, my memories of my solo rides around the lake trails were so vivid that I decided to go relive it. Well, I don't want to take my carbon road bike on the trials and mess it up, so I bought me a Gunnar Crosshairs frameset. I'm still building it up, but every time I work on my Gunnar, I get flashbacks of my rides around the lake and why I enjoy riding so much. I can't wait to attack the trails again!
Like you, Phiber, my Gunnar will be built with CX in mind, but I'm stuck with some of the old road components and can't justify spending money on CX specific components when I alread have 2 other bikes.