Read the whole thread and I'm going to piggyback a little bit.
Have a 12 year old Navigator I'd probably replace under the right circumstances, which incidentally are pretty close to yours. Under $30K and new. There's just always something wrong with the Navigator, usually multiple things wrong with it. I'm at the point I'd rather take it to someone else to work on, but the cost is daunting. Right now, it needs something with the ABS system (ABS pump is $600), the back glass release won't lock (who knows how much $), and the passenger front door actuator has gone (cheap to DIY but a messy pain with the glue and taking everything apart and so forth). Also needs brakes and a transmission flush, it's been 2 years since the last flush. I'm suspecting the master cylinder is going bad also ($200 plus my time), braking force seems unusually high and the brakes have been flushed and bled previously. The fuel economy is of course terrible, but what else is new. My wife would be thrilled if I got rid of it, she hates losing family time to garage time.
I love the room and the commanding view of the road but constantly replacing parts is getting a little tiresome. It's really kind of turning into a basket case with the work it needs. I need to take a week off of work just to get it where it needs to be, I think. I do have over 300 hours of vacation time banked so I think that's the one thing that's probably in favor of keeping it.
I think out of all the options listed so far for new, I'd probably choose the Passat SE at $26K, but my motivations are different than yours. For one I'm 6'7" and biased towards most legroom, and live in Texas and drive on pavement only so don't really care worry about ground clearance or going out of my way to protect the rims, the rims will look like new after 5 years as long as the sun doesn't make the painted portions fade.
A lot of the small SUV/CUV aren't really that great on legroom in my experience, however, I'm happy to be proven wrong by a model I haven't tried. The big CUVs that are comfortable don't meet the price range.
Unlike you, I would probably consider a 2-3 year old model for under $20K but only if it lived in the South or other non-snow location it's whole life. People generally like West Coast cars but for me it's a no if it's been to the Sierra/Cascades and has a bunch of rock chips from the pea gravel they use for traction out on the Left coast.