I've had a sportcross for 4 or 5 years now, I bought it almost solely on the fact that it looked cool and I knew the cars to be reliable, as a good friend with the sedan version commuted 80 mi round trip for 5 years with his, on top of drifting the car probably 8-12 weekends a year with a mostly stock powertrain. My car has over 200k miles, the only things I've had to do during my tenure so far is replace control arms, timing belt and water pump, and keep the MAF sensor clean. The factory airbox has a sort of ram air effect which seems to dirty the sensor easily. I did the 5 speed swap using all oem sedan parts other than the Supra flywheel about 2 years ago, it was fairly easy to do other than the pedal install. The car will run on the auto ecu but it will feel sluggish and not very responsive, I got an ECU from Quantum that improved the driving experience immensely, but if I had it to do over again I would let someone more knowledgeable just swap in a manual ecu and have the keys coded for it.
The car is a lot of fun on windy roads with a good alignment to eliminate some of the front push tendencies of the heavy motor. It also covers ground on the highway in relative comfort, (though I don't love the seats) but the best mpg I've ever seen is 23-24 highway. Around town is more like 18. If you let the lower ball joint get bad enough, the wheel can collapse and ruin your front fenders, from what I'm told. You can almost guarantee that the cars with the alcantara seats are gonna look rough by now, mine are fuzzy and stained, but they do hold you in better than the all leather seats. No lumbar adjustment is really annoying, so is the arm rest location once you 5 speed swap. Cup holders are not designed for American size beverages. For some reason my hvac system only blows hot on the passenger side, but that's not a common problem as far as I know.
The motor sounds wonderful right around 4k rpm with gentle throttle input, but one of the previous owners removed the cat, so even with a resonator and muffler it's too raspy for my taste at WOT. Very torquey midrange, and will pull strong to redline if properly tuned, but a 330ci from the same era will feel more responsive and powerful throughout the powerband, despite the numbers being similar. The amount of stuff you can fit into the sportcross with the seats folded is kind of astounding, and the rear hatch area has a clever folding floor so you can choose between flat loading surface or deeper luggage capacity. However, rear legroom is not impressive. The sportcross has a factory subwoofer and numerous hidden storage spots. I think the chassis feels fairly lively and playful as long as you don't compare it to a sports car.
Mine always feels like it's just a handful of little adjustments away from being a perfect daily. If you can find one, check the VVTI cam gear for oil leaks. The car was built with Toyota logic, so it's fairly straightforward to work on, though it's a long motor in a short engine bay. Nothing on the rear suspension is enjoyable to service or replace, removing the diff is a pain, so are the upper control arms. Bumpers on the sportcross are unique and expensive, same with the roof moldings and rear tail lights. I think the sportcross will be a better highway car than your Subaru as far as eating up miles at high speed with not too much road noise, though these cars are geared a little short and you won't be impressed by the mpg. Let me know if you have other questions, I'm sure I'm forgetting a few things..
Some cons I remember which you can probably find on my post about avoiding new car -itis: After doing the 5 speed swap my cruise still doesn't work despite the quantum ecu, it could work if I did a manual ecu and repinned some stuff in the harness. As I said above, the chassis feels fairly lively, but my other car is an RX-7, which I guess could best be described as kinda "fizzy" in terms of really feeling fun to drive. It's not fair to compare the two cars, especially since one is a no power steering sports car from the 80's, but the Lexus doesn't really hide the fact that it's a 3300 lb wagon. I live on a windy road in the hills so this is probably more important to me than someone who commutes 20 mi on the highway. The flip side to this is that it is measurably more comfortable than the Mazda. Owner's manual specifies premium fuel, which stings extra due to the poor mpg. Headlights glaze over easily and are not cheap to replace.
