I'm presume it's not a tech set up your after? By the sounds of what you want, it sounds like the kind of touring you'll be doing will be mainly just day touring or even short slack country mission just outside of the ropes. The type of bindings used for this type of touring are more often than not, simply alpine bindings with a walk mode. You have a couple of choices in both the 13DIN and 16DIN categories.
This year, salomon have introduced the Guardian (rebrands by Scott and Atomic). It's a pretty burly 16DIN binding, featuring the walk mechanism switch behind the heelpiece, allowing users to switch from walk to ski without removing their ski. Currently it's main competitor is the newly designed Duke from Marker called the Duke EPF. The EPF boasts a 28% wider chassis than the old duke; some dispute this however, saying that it now features a 90mm chassis, which is in fact not 28% wider than the old duke's 76mm chassis. The Duke EPF differs from the Guardian in it's placement of the walk mechanism switch also, the Duke EPF forces users to remove their ski when switching from ski to walk as the switch mechanism is underneath the skiers boot.
The Guardian boasts a high level of power transmission, it attributes this to a lower comparative stack height than the Duke EPF. Actually the Guardian stands 10mm lower at 26mm than the Duke EPF at 36mm. The Duke EPF has the weight advantage over the Guardians though. The Duke EPF weighs in at 2,790pp in a large size, the Guardian weight some 2,960pp.
If you don't require a 16DIN binding, but still want the comfort of an alpine binding, it's worth taking a look at the Baron. Up until last year, the Baron was the Duke's little brother in a sense. It was a lighter, lowered 'dinned' Duke, which replaced metal components with plastic ones. This year marker have not updated the Baron with the Extended Power Frame (that's what EPF stands for) on the new Duke. Whilst the walk mechanism switch is still located under the skiers boot and the binding alone still stands at 36mm The chassis is considerably smaller, marker would say 28%, than the new Duke EPF; it's chassis width is 76mm, this can also be attributed to the weight difference between Duke EPF and Baron.
As of last season their is another choice. MFD Alltime plates allow skiers to use their alpine bindings as touring bindings when interfaced with MFD Alltime plates. Like the Guardian the Ski/Walk mechanism switch is behind the heel piece and thus skiers can switch between uphill on downhill without removing their skis. The stand height of an MFD setup depends on the binding interfaced with the plates, but they are competitive with the Guardian. Blister states that with a Pivot Series binding the setup stands at 26mm, since a Pivot series binding on it's own is 20mm, the MFD plate must add about 6mm of stand height to the binding. So by that logic with a STH Driver series binding, the set up would stand at 23.5mm and with a Tyrollia Peak series binding at 23mm. There are downsides to the MFD Alltime plates, the two main ones being the wieght, MFD alltime setup are considerably heavier than a Duke EPF or a Guardian, I heard in most cases in excess of 3,000g pp. The second being that it effects the skis natural flex. However I have never personally skied MFD plates so I cannot comment on the latter point on a personal level.
Hope this helps, if you got any questions about the above feel free to pm and I'll get on it. Cheers,
Joey
