I live in Idaho at 4600 ft elevation. The thin air and crappy gas make fuel injection a five star preference. I just had to pull the carbs on my dual sport Yamaha TW200 and XT250 machines to clean the passages fouled by old fuel. The rest of my bikes are fuel injected. No problems. They adapt nicely to changing elevation. That puts my range of "interesting" HD bikes in the 2007 or newer range. The XR1200R is the most nearly perfect choice if I were planning a purchase. I already have a 2007 Yamaha/Star Roadliner with only 1644 miles on the odometer. Plenty of bike for touring. The Versys is my "commuter". I put 7,000 miles on it in 6 months while out of town in San Diego. The Versys has a 5 gallon tank and 53 MPG. It has the best range of any bike in the garage. The XR1200R has a smaller gas tank and fewer MPG. More frequent stops would be necessary. The Versys seat isn't really a great long haul choice either. I took at 70 mile ride one afternoon. That was really pushing the limits of comfort.
I appreciate the unemployment issue. I went 6 months burning off vacation hours to keep the bills paid last year. My backlog of hours is slowly recovering. I never take time off just be make sure that fallback reserve is available.