Touring and Cross bikes run very different wheels, and the frames are very different also. Some of this stuff may diverge further as the X bikes move to discs. X bikes run on very low pressure and for that tubulars or tubeless are preferred.

I run good hubs, I have moved to boutique hubs at this stage in my life, but I have run LX or no-name through much of the rest of it. Spokes, I run wheelsmith, currently butted, but always prior to that I ran straight gage, and they work fine, spokes if they are the correct fit, and stress relieved will never break and the butted part is irrelevant. For rims I run Velocity, or Alex. 36 hole is minimum for me. I build my own wheels, and the simplest thing is to copy a proven component mix.