Warbird is a great, great bike. Journeyman is also a great bike from Salsa for your purposes if you might want to branch into more bikepacking type usage.
I have a steel El Mariachi as my "forever bike" and really love Salsas.
Anyway, I don't really do much gravel grinding (I lean more toward XC and enduro), but it's huge in our area. Since you list Ozark Mountains as your region, you might check out
Ozark Cycling Adventures' route list for ideas on cool rides. You can filter by distance as well as gravel/road.