I'm in my 50s and built up my touring bike about three years ago. I used drop bars for around 30 years and initially put them on my touring bike but I wasn't comfortable. Bike was a little to long for me with drop bars. Tried flat bars with bar ends, and ended up with butterfly bars. These allow the most positions and my default position of the outside edges is the most comfortable so far. On a tour its really nice to be able to get more upright.
There are a couple drawbacks. Due to the way these mount, if I am on rough terrain and need to have my hands near the brake levers, my hands are actually behind the steer tube and the handling is terrible. I suppose you could move the brake levers to the sides or top. The other thing is that I do sometimes wish i could get into the drop position to stretch a little and get more aerodynamic, especially when riding into a headwind.
Keep in mind that different bars will drastically alter the reach and your riding position.
A couple other things that really improved my comfort were raising the bars (my soma saga has an extra long steer tube) and lowering the seat slightly. Lower seat was more of a back pain issue and as i got fitter and more flexible it started to come up a bit.