Well, when I say break, I mean "snap." I've seen carbon forks snapped and bikes snapped from traumatic impacts. I haven't seen that with steel. That does NOT mean that the steel wouldn't fail from the same crash! Only that it would bend. Some people make a big deal out of this, like bending is somehow way safer than breaking. But like I said earlier, when you're crashing hard at 30mph, the failure mode of your bike is the least of your problems.

So what I'm saying is I agree with you 100%. As someone who has toured and who currently races road and cyclocross, my experience aligns with what you're saying - maybe touring is worse in terms of constant low-level stress, but racing bikes are subjected to far more severe shocks, and short of actually hitting an immovable object, hold up to it just fine. Carbon fiber rims are a great example - they're a lot stiffer and stay true more readily than a lot of 32-spoke aluminum rims would. Cyclocross is such a great case study of how tough carbon fiber really is. Now, that's tough on a fork - but full-carbon forks are almost totally ubiquitous, even on steel or aluminum frames.