Curious. There is probably also a pre-load adjustment on the pin pressing the MC. You might want to find out factory specs for that.
a car driven hard can actually retract the pistons when forces actually cause small angles in the spindles/rotors. Subaru has wider bearing spacings, or at least used to, just for this reason. Run fast and hard while steering over bad terrain, and the first half of the pedal travel can be dead air. Their wider spacing reduced that affect.
how worn are the pads? I tend to interpret a firmer pedal with new pads. Also, my pedal feel and travel seems to vary with pads. Element3 pads absolutely firmed up the f150.