I am well aware of "stab braking" called by different name other places.
I do have a cantilever in the front which I do pulse and, yes, I can tell when the front rim gets hot.
I have an Arai in the basement. The reason I don't usually have it mounted when we tour is that unless we are planning transalpine route, it's an overkill. For "normal" CC touring on non-mountainous terrain, we just use a front rim and a 200mm rear disk brake.
Our tandem is made to accept front and rear cantilevers as well as rear disks. Rim brakes has 2 disadvantages for us on a tandem.
- If the rim gets wet, it takes an extra eternity for the pads to grab. Being there. Done that. Just made the sudden T junction on a very steep road in Vermont. Good thing my SO didn't realize how close we came to ditching the bike hard.
- Risk of heat related failures.
Disk brakes has it's own set of downsides so it's just a matter of making the tradeoffs. YMMV and I make no claim that our choices are better than yours.