You can't compare the 2009 Legacy you rode in to a new one.
2022 Legacy
Ride comfort
The Legacy’s ride is superb. It mops up just about any pavement flaw with ease, feeling as plush as a luxury car. We marveled at the Legacy’s ability to filter out bumps, control side-to-side body motions, and keep passengers virtually unaware of all but the most egregious road imperfections. The Legacy is not only the most comfortable riding midsized sedan, but it eclipses expensive luxury cars such as the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and Lexus LS.
Wow, I had a 2021 legacy base model as a loaner, and luxury ride is not what I thought of. It had 5k miles on it, and it was at 0C, but I was actually surprised how stiffly sprung and damped it was compared to our Outback with 50k miles on it. Maybe the Legacy had its tires at 40 psi or something. Maybe the fancy trims have different shocks? To me, it felt Subaru was trying cheapen the interior a bit in this Legacy, where in my Outback, the base interior makes me question why anyone would bother upgrading it...
The 21 Legacy did absorb small bumps like road cracks a bit more serenely than our Outback inspite of the stiffer suspension though, very solid chassis and frame. Our Outback feels half way to my Dads Ram truck coil sprung solid axle on small sharp bumps. Just a tiny extra jiggle.
That said, our car is sprung and damped softly, so it floats over lots of large bumps on the road, and it has long travel, so I can only recall once heavily bottoming it out. It's not quite 70's luxo yacht but rides softer than anything else I've been in lately, and if you disconnected the sway bars it probably would ride even smoother with more roll obviously.
OP,
I haven't actually driven this gen of Outback, but 2018,19 are relatively quiet smooth road cruisers, and I would've liked a bench front seat in ours. I suspect the 2020+ Outback with the 17" tires should be softer sprung than the Legacy and have the same good small bump absorption. I would give one a try. I have driven a 2020 Ascent and it was very similar to my Outback, smooth and quiet as well. Give those 3 a spin, also even a 2.5 Crosstrek maybe just a 7/8 version of an Outback. That motor could spend its whole life below 2200 rpm as well for light footed drivers.