I'd take the perspective of choosing a bike that will handle the worst conditions you expect to contend with and then if you can "live with" the compromises for your other uses. You can ride a mountain bike on all surfaces, but you can't ride an LHT on all surfaces - especially very steep downhills where an endo is possible if you don't slide your ass behind your seat. Unless you have the arms of an orangutan, you won't be able to reach the brakes on a drop bar LHT.
You still can reatively thin minimum tread tires for 26" like the 1.5" Marathon Plus, or if you step up to a 29er you can use (depending on the rim) road tires of 28mm or greater. The latter is less available in third world countries, I'm told.