have you looked at the Vstroms? for my money those things are just about the best all 'rounder you can get.
Big enough to be comfy, small enough to be fun, great torque, good enough handling and suspension.
If i was into buying a real adventure bike i'd take out a loan on a used KTM1290 and never look back, but i'm not really a car-loan-having kinda guy.
That new twin cylinder KTM looks really good too, but once again more expensive than comparable options.
Having ridden all of them in track/competitive evaluations (for my old job) the KTM crushes the ADV segment by a freakin mile. GS is probably every bit as good from a technical/fit/finish perspective and they were more reliable in our test fleet, (KTM and Ducati Multi broke down a LOT) but they are just so goddamn boring.
The only africa twin i got to ride was the automatic one... eh... hard to compare. I could see it being handy for some stuff but i just like shifting way too much. I don't even like automatic cars. Ride and suspension was GREAT