Bikepacking - a viable alternative to racks & panniers

NS Eccentric CroMo is fairly similar, takes at least 29"×2.4" and 27.5"×3.0", and even cheaper. You get dropper routing but lose rack bosses (though paying someone to add bosses will still be cheaper overall) and head angle is a bit slacker. And no rigid fork available though I'm sure there's a Surly out there that would be fine

Edit: I say cheaper, looks like RRP is the same nearly. But CRC had them for <£200 IIRC