I live in Wyoming where paved roads are few and far between -- but there's a bunch of mighty nice dirt roads, both county-maintained gravel and forest service roads of all levels of "quality". A few years ago I traded in my road bike for a cross bike and haven't looked back, riding anything from centuries on gravel and dirt roads to fast centuries on the tarmac. My wife's a good cyclist and I want to share my favorite dirt rides with her, but her road bike won't cut it. Consequently, I'd like to get her a cross frame that she can use like I use mine. I lucked into my frame but I'm having a hard time coming up with the appropriate frame for her. I'm a bit of bike snob and she knows enough that if I roll out a Surly as a replacement for her Merlin road frame she'll notice. I've been tempted by the cool factor (and price) of a Ridley X-fire frame, to which I'd swap over the parts that would work and Ebay the rest and the frame. My feeling is that the X-fire might be "road like enough" to ride well for her and have enough flash to appeal to her sense of fashion. So my questions are:
(1) Is the X-fire road friendly enough for a bike that will be road ridden 50% of the time? I've seen some X-fire frames that lack water bottle bosses and have seen others that have them -- is that common on cross frames? I've read that the Ridley's size big -- she'd normally ride a 54 top tube (she's 5'9", about 33" inseam), but I've seen people similarly built going for what seem much smaller Ridley frames.
(2) What other frames should I be considering? They've got to have some style and/or flash! For my own old school and/or snobbish reasons I'm partial to Ti, nice light steel, and carbon frames. Despite being a bike snob, I'd like to not spend too much on this "swap" of frames after it's all said and done.
(3) What is the longevity (miles/years) for a carbon frame that isn't raced? She's a strong rider but she's not going to be slamming through hairpins and bunny-hopping barriers on it. The goal is to have a bike frame that can handle several thousand miles a year on rough roads over the course of a decade.

I'll appreciate any advice or ideas. Thanks!

a Fuji cross bike and put Continental Contact tirs 700x28 and they rock! 32C is what I'd probably go with since your doing so much dirt roads.. Here, she's doing maybe 30% dirt roads..

Go custom. Then it can be built to suit her measurements and her type of riding. That's just what I'm in the process of doing.