andrew, despite the topic of steel coming up and while I have three steel bikes, I also have a couple of aluminum bikes and to be honest, all of them work fine and I really dont have concerns about them not working properly for touring. Look at the Cannondale touring bikes which were always such great bikes and I know folks have ridden around the planet on them.
Like I said, I have very limited experience with cf, but have always shied away from a full on cf bike simply because I dont want to spend the money on one, prefer to use that money for a trip somewhere (I'm talking traditionally road bikes as the quote "adventure" bikes, with stronger designed frames are a new thing).
I still have always been a bit wary of a cf frame, thinking of someone in my family dropping the edge of a sharp snow shovel or whatever onto cf, that sort of thing, let alone wanting or needing to throw my bike onto the roof of a Guatemalan chicken bus or something with rough treatment probably in the picture--the old "how will cf deal with a weird, maybe rare (but possible) good whack on it.
I always remember riding up Mont Royal, a inner city small mountain here in Montreal, on the paved road a bunch of years ago. Lots of roadies ride it for training, and a couple on cf road bikes passed me near the top, and the lady who was pretty tired, wasnt looking and rode right into a cement block placed there for the recent Grand Prix de Montreal race (the one Sagan won at least once). She wasnt going fast, but hit it right at the corner of the big cement block that was there for the banner of the "top of the mountain" for the race, she flipped over the bars, was ok, but I could see on her bike that she had put a pretty good gash into the cf frame, right near the headtube....told her and her boyfriend husband, in no certain terms that if they were going to continue riding, that they ride very slowly, as the frame had been clearly damaged and who knows how it was going to behave.

all that blah blah to say that for touring, maybe far off in whereever place, would I use a cf frame....prob not....but given how mtb in cf are abused up the fricken ying yang every day, for most regular uses, I figure a well designed tough frame in cf could work fine.

but what do I know, Im just joe blow who doesnt have much experience or knowledge of cf, but realistically, the vast vast majority of bikes go their whole lives without any bad crashes or whatnot.