It's an interesting conspiracy theory to consider that most of the people touring have been duped into their gear selections by the mind melding powers of the google Borg collective.. and equally attractive to be one of the few who are "in on the secret" about how it should really be done. Otherwise it might just be that most people, most of the time, have different priorities than going as light as possible for the sake of going as light as possible. I'm not knocking your choices, they are as valid as mine, but I suspect they represent the minority opinion in regards to overall touring.
There is a tipping point at which worrying about weight becomes a concern of diminishing returns. That point is whether you can achieve your touring goal in relative comfort. I suspect most people find that tipping point using conventional means and that is why there is no real push to further strip away what is already, for many, spartan resources. I like being self sufficient and don't want to call a taxi or hitch hike or sit around waiting for someone else to fix what I could fix because I wanted to save some weight and not bring enough tools. I don't like cooking, but some do, and they would probably enjoy doing that on their vacation rather than eating canned food from a pot with a spork. I can't relate, but I have even heard of some people packing spices!
The same applies to bikes. The law of diminishing returns suggests that people need a dependable platform they can trust and ride in order to complete a tour. That is what they seek(and why Ortleib panniers are so popular). For most that is a mid grade bike made of conventional materials. Once you can achieve your goal, you look to other sub goals within the tour itself. For some that is blogging, photography, site seeing, meeting locals, cooking... and for a few it is seeing how much additional weight they can drop from their kit. But that is a subgoal unrelated to the main goal which many people aren't that attracted to because they can already achieve their main goal with the weight they have. It's a valid sub goal, and for some forms of touring it may play a part in the main goal. But not usually to a large degree.
And few (I want to say no one but will err on the side of caution) is doing 3 month unsupported tours with 10lb's of gear in climates like Canada without resorting to restaurants and motels...
Last edited by Happy Feet; 10-02-15 at 06:28 PM.