You left out one critical piece of information...how much do you want to spend on this bike?
The lowest I would go on a touring bike is the Masi Giramondo 700c, anything lower priced and you have to pay for the stuff that the Masi comes with which all that would do is put the price back up the Masi anyways. Also this bike is the lowest geared bike I found, and I'm a bit older than you so the gears are big deal when climbing mountains with a load. Go to the Masi website and look at the specs on it; is it the best bike? no, you'll have to spend more money to find the best, like the Oxford Bike Works Expedition, or step up even further and get the Jamis Renegade Escapade; but the Masi is the best for the money.
Masi uses mechanical dual piston brakes instead of hydro brakes, I prefer he mechanical, no worry about bleeding the system, don't need to use a wedge to remove the pads, just less mechanical hassle on the road should it need something worked on. The Deore derailleur for the most part is really smooth shifting. It took a while to get use the seat but now I like it. It comes with really nice Tubus steel racks front and rear.
The only change I made so far is I removed the front Tubus rack and replaced it with a Blackburn Bootlegger rack on instead because I'm only carrying about a total of 30 pounds in gear, so I don't need a set of panniers on the front. The other change I want to make, when tires come back into stores, is to replace the heavy 1600 grams a piece Kenda Drumlin tires and put a pair of Schwalbe Marathon Almotion tires that weigh 500 grams each and have the lowest rolling resistance of any touring tire tested. But in the meantime I have to use the heavy Kenda tires, maybe it will build up my endurance better. That's really the only changes I made or want to make, the rest seems fine at this point, I've only owned it for a month so maybe something will pop up, but I don't think so. Seat thing is personal, at this time I think it's going to work. The bike does not come with pedals, so you need to buy pedals of course. I got a set of Shimano A530's I took off my old touring bike, but there are lots of choices, you just need a wide/long pedal for foot support, the Shimano did get the highest reviews of others I looked at.