The current crop of Beneteaus doesn't do much for me, but the mid- to larger First series are quite good, and I agree with your assessment of them.
There's no right or wrong here...I love sailing on almost any boat that isn't a deathtrap...but I would say "actively hand-steering" in heavy weather with a crew of two adults would lose interest quickly and get dangerous shortly thereafter in an Atlantic passage...which can be heavy weather for days at a time.
Alex's boat is not extreme, but it's essentially a racer with some cruiser amenities, and plenty of performance. He himself has said that it is not the boat to cross the ocean and even going to Madeira (a 600 NM, three to four-day passage for his boat) would require a good weather window and better skills. It comes down to crew, tolerance for the ride and skill more than anything.
A friend told me of when he crewed 30 years ago on a 1974 Viking 33 (I have a 1973, near identical model). They went New York to Bermuda to BVIs with it, a boat with a gas engine, a 12 gallon tank, 20 gallons of water and a 30 gallon
holding tank. They had a crew of six, all young men. They likely didn't have provisions that weren't out of a tin, no pressure water, no
GPS and probably just a bulky
VHF and a bulkhead
compass.
With that, they were able to sail 24 hours a day and made good time while hotbunking, drinking beer and ignoring hygiene. That's because in the mid-'70s, a 33 footer was a good-sized boat and why shouldn't it go to Bermuda and the BVIs?
But I imagine the ride was rough...hell, I KNOW it was, and that six young men would have been needed, two per watch, to keep things going. A few weeks of that were likely enough. As liveaboards, the parameters are different, and even minimalists and Luddites like the Pardeys opt for comfortable motion in a seaway.
I would suggest that you and your wife buy personal
EPIRBs and crew...separately...on boats of the type you like going trans-Atlantic or on known hard runs like Falmouth to Finisterre, for instance. Compare notes and contrast experiences: You may find there's a big difference between boats on which you'll be happy to spend one to three weeks on passage, and those on which you think you could spend three to five years.