I'm very curious about your thoughts on this. Obviously your very experienced in building capable off road vehicles but here's where the question comes into play about the CVT. Nearly every manufacturer of All Terrain Vehicles now incorporates some sort of Constantly Variable Transmission and has been for many years. This ranges from 4-wheelers to snow mobiles and utility type vehicles such as the rangers and other variants. Even some tractors are utilizing this type of drive train. Is is Subaru's version that is lacking or is it just a general dislike for them as a whole?for 2013 i'd recommend a forester over either a legacy or outback. the OB comes with the CVT, not the best trans for off-road/beach/sand use. The Forester comes with 5MT and/turbo.
Among other reasons, I'd suggest a Fozzy over an outback for that generation (i.e. newest) Subarus.