Rather than move the latch along with everything else that had to be moved, they built a half-hatch that does nothing but get in the way. And how many cents per car did this save them?
I had forgotten about that, and the towing section made no mention of it either. But now that you mention it, I do remember reading about that in the part of the manual about the spare tire.
A 1998 Legacy owner's manual says never to tow a manual AWD vehicle like that, but an automatic can be towed like that for a short trip.
I'm not sure how Subaru come to that conclusion, but there you go.