Hey Deb, it sounds like you may just need to give yourself a bit of time to work through these issues. I know it took me a while to figure out exactly what I wanted my travel bike to do. In the beginning I too leaned towards it being sportier (i.e. carbon fork) but in the end decided that being able to carry stuff in both front and back pannier bags, even if not a lot was important to me. I also like the idea of versatility. Yes a trailer is a fine option, but the trailer itself weighs a lot, so if it were me I would still want to be able use pannier bags for touring. I am not sure how sporty the original geometry is that he proposed. I hope he understands that you are not racing. Does your frame builder really 'get' what you want this bike to do? I know a lot of very traditional framebuilders still think in terms of a loaded touring bike or sport bike, but can't appreciate that sometimes we want a bike that is good for sport riding and light touring. The framebuilder I worked with Bilenky, seemed to get it. In fact, he offers a bike called the tourlite (and the fork he made me is his tourlite fork, which comes with rack mounts) which is designed precisely for this application. Maybe you could compare the geometry of that bike to the bike your frame builder is proposing to build you. Or maybe that is what your builder is offering you by suggesting that he lengthen the wheelbase if you want front racks.