I looked at a Trek 520 and they were overpriced by quite a bit from what other bikes offer, and they're on the high side on the weight scale too at 30 pounds.
Compare that Trek 520 to a Masi Giramondo that cost about $200 less than that Trek and this is what you get:
https://masibikes.com/products/giramondo-700c-2020
Note the better dual piston brakes, and note they use a larger diameter 180mm rotor on the front where it counts instead of 160mm.
Note the better components.
Note the far better steel Tubus Tara racks designed for 88 pounds instead of 55 pounds, and aluminum welds on a racks have been known to crack and break on tours, not the steel though.
Note the gear ratio, that's the lowest gear ratio you can find on a touring bike for under $2,500, those gears are for hauling heavy loads up mountains.
Note also the tire size, 32mm that comes on the Trek is not a loaded touring size tire, ideally 38mm is the narrowest tire for loaded touring which that size could fit the Trek but you would have to make sure it would clear everything.
The Masi weighs about a pound and half less, but that pound and half can be reduced more by putting on better tires, the crappy tires (which all new bikes come with crappy tires) weigh 3200 grams total, you can cut that down with a very good set of Schwalbe Marathon Supremes by at least 2,000 grams, that's over 4 pounds coming off just from the tires, you can't take off much weight with different tires on the Trek, maybe a half pound and end up with tires not well suited for touring or commuting.
Masi is made in Taiwan, Trek is made in China...believe it or not there is a difference, Rivendell bikes are made in Taiwan.
I looked at a LOT of touring bikes, and the Masi checked off all my boxed except for the tires and the seat. Since I've bought it 3 weeks ago I've put on about 300 miles on it and it rides very smoothly, now when I do switch tires I will put 40c tires instead of 45's that came on the bike so some of that smoothness might be reduced by a very small amount, but in the meantime I'm going to wear out the stock tires.