Here's my take on that:
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4. Once you get use to a larger SUV or vehicle that rides high, it can be hard to switch back to a sedan where it feels like you're sitting on the ground. Especially as you get older, you just don't want to have to get on the ground. That, and being that low again adds to feelings of lack of safety (#1)
My siblings and I took many a family road trip in the wagon. It worked...it was roomy and comfortable. It didn't look as cool as do present-day wagons, so I can relate to not wanting something that looks like those "old school" wagons.
The worst thing about station wagon styling was that it didn't go with the American design ethos, at least not by the time I came along.
This looks not so bad to me.
The thing American wagons of the '60s and '70s is that I knew what the "regular" versions looked like, so the wagon version couldn't compete. With the European ones, I had no idea what they "normal" version looked like, so I just judged it by what it looked like. "Woodies" weren't trying to look like anything else, so they stood on their own right rather than in comparison to something else.
In One's Dotage:
I can assure you that as one gets older, it gets progressively harder to get into and out of an SUV. Someone has to almost lift old folks into an SUV, getting them out is an exercise in making sure they don't fall out the thing. Of course, it's only slightly better with my coupe, though they could sort of fall-slide into the passenger seat, but I had basically pick them up. I witnessed that with both my parents.
Either way, the whole process is fraught with "not so fast," "where's the ground?", "you're holding me too tight," "wait, wait, wait," "don't push me," etc.
Advice: You do you, but this is my suggestion (no feedback needed)
My advice to anyone whose parents seem as though they'll make it into their late 80s and beyond: Strongly push them to buy a minivan as the last vehicle that they'll ever buy/own. It's far and away the easiest thing into which one can have a wheelchair lift installed and have the interior remediated to hold the wheelchair in place. Quite simply, it's the rare 90-something who doesn't need a wheelchair, so one may as well hope for the best -- that one's folks will live well into their 90s -- but plan for the reality that they will need a wheeled seat.
If not a minivan, then go with a station wagon...It's got plenty of room in the rear for a wheelchair, but most importantly, the "normal" height off the ground will make it far easier for one's folks who are semi-mobile (they can stand with an assist and shift themselves into a car seat).
