there are as many opinions about that question as there are posters to this forum...

That said, I've commuted on my LHT nearly a year with great satisfaction with the bike. I bought the frame & had my LBS build it up with barcons, front 50/38 double, 8-spd rear. Spent about $ 1300 on getting it all-weather commute compatible. I had several thousand miles commuting & recreational riding on it until 3 weeks ago. Then I removed the SKS fenders, changed the tires from 700x32 to 700x28, went clipless but kept the rear rack and am now riding the LHT on charity & weekend rides. Use the rear rack to hold my Arkel Tailrider with spare tube, etc. The barcons & my gearing work great but I don't shift nearly as much as my wife on her Specialized Sequoia with brifters.

My commuter is now an old steel MTB with an Xtracycle attachment on it. Since my commute is only 8 miles RT, the Xtracycle works better and is more convenient. The LHT is plenty strong enough to ride our Tx chip seal country roads in comfort & feeling relatively safe when potholes, gravel bars, etc can't be avoided. I'm a Clyde at 6'4", 225 lbs so there is a fair amount of momentum & force to my bike at 15 - 20 mph. There's one subtle quality to the Surly that I like very much: its stability and straight-ahead steering. No tendency to get lodged in a hole or slip sideways in gravelly patches, it just rides on through. This is a quality to be expected in a touring frame but I appreciate it every time I get on the bike. It is not a trick bike to dance around on.

The Surly LHT seems to me to be a great midrange option between off-the-shelf steel touring bikes and the expensive custom frames closer to a couple of grand in price. There are other opinions on this in this forum but that's mine. Whether you buy the complete bike or build it up yourself is a question of mechanical expertise and investment.