The Surly is a pretty huge rack, might be a bit of overkill. I've also heard mixed reviews of it, and if I'm going to spend that kind of money on a rack I'd rather just buy a Nitto - never had an issue with Nitto racks, except that they cost almost as much money as any bike I'd put them on.

If you just want a regular rack trunk on the front, you could mount a Pletscher rack (Rivendell has photos of it mounted on the front of a bike. You can also get a cheap front rack that mounts to the cantilever posts, though you'd want to check the size to see if it could carry your intended load, something like this. For a platform with pannier capabilities, I've used this Blackburn rack, which is a very good value at that price. Jandd makes a front rack as well that has a platform that can also have panniers mounted to it, though I've never used one.

I mostly have Velo Orange (Constructeur, Rando and Pass Hunter) and Nitto (Campee, with low rider frames that are removable) front racks on different bikes. Pricier, though (I got most of them used while trolling ebay), and again, if you are looking to mount a rack trunk up front the platform may not be long enough.

I think a bike is incomplete without having complete crap-hauling capacity, if you couldn't already tell.