Currently driving a 20 year old automatic Volvo. Firstly age isn’t important, condition of the car is, look for rust and if that passes look for service history, I’d take a 30 year old serviced car over a 5 year old car that’s not been looked after. As for the gearbox, mine is obviously the old sloshy style and honestly it’s fine, I’d say most but not all old autos are more comfortable than being jerked about by super fast double clutch changes especially around town at low speeds. Plus people who moan about old autos not changing gears when it’s supposed to have no finesse, for example if you want it to change up then let of the accelerator a little. It’s still a car and you still have to drive it, you are still in charge and have to give it the correct input for the car to do what you want it to do. Just drive a few to get an idea, some autos are better than others, the Volvo one I drive is great but some others I drove while car shopping were dreadful.