Best Touring Bike

[fsheehan]

Hi,
I am looking for advice on the type of touring - general usage bike to purchase. I have been struck by the number of tour blogs that cite BMW as their ride. I am kinda guessing that in Europe, BMW might be a very logical choice, but what about North and South America? I have had fairly extensive experience with BMW cars, and have found them to be engineering works of art, and beautiful to drive, BUT requiring a LOT of maintenance, and having parts that are outrageously expensive and mostly proprietary. So the owner is locked into a relatively small service network. Thus definitely NOT the kind of car to drive into rural areas, and not the kind of car to buy if you are anything other than financially very flush.
So, my question is this. Are the BMW bikes subject to the same sort of elegant but fragile engineering, or are they truly uber-reliable workhorses that will economically take their riders around the globe. Is their time-to-failure; time-to-repair performance on a par with a Japanese bike?
Since I am still researching potential bikes, any information will be appreciated.
Regards,
Frank Sheehan