You are right, that's why I tried to find another used touring bike to replace the 85 Schwinn Lt Tour Luxe I bought used, but none ever came up. So I replaced the touring bike with a Masi Giramondo 700c, not a high end touring bike, in fact it's low mid level, but it had all the features I wanted, features I could not find on a few more expensive bikes. I use the bike mostly for bike camping at this point, getting use to camping, and what and what not to take, I'm hoping to do a couple of short 5 to 7 day tours this coming summer, then the following summer do a long tour. I was going to do the Adventure Cycling tour across the US, but the cost went up by about $1,500 and will probably go up a lot more, so I will probably solo it, then I can do what I want to do when I want to do it, but I'll follow their maps, but I can probably do it solo for about $1,500 less then with the group method.

One of those short tours I'm planning will be a Adventure Cycling 7 day tour where they spend 3 days in classroom, and 5 days riding; I think I have a pretty good handle on camping, but think I could still learn a lot with pros teaching me.