Disappointed in improvement after Shocks/Struts

[Mike1261]

I just did the shocks, struts, mounts, end links, and inner/outer tie rods on my e53.

One of the rear shocks was basically a solid rod. One of my front struts had no hydraulic fluid left in it and was basically doing nothing. The other two were both junk in expected ways.

The tierods were seized so haven't had an alignment in 70k miles.

The end links were as you'd expect.

I wasn't expecting to feel like I had a brand new car, but I was expecting the suspension to feel less jarring on my back and have less road feel and manhole cover impact translate through the vehicle, and a little better steering feel.

Granted, it's getting aligned on Saturday so I'm hoping that makes it feel a little better, but there's still a sort of floaty feeling in the handling, a lot of road texture is translated in the steering wheel, there's a creak in the front left of the suspension at low speed...

Front and rear lower control arms were done not long ago too.

There's no slop or clunking in the steering wheel itself. There's no clunking noises in general, just one brief/short front end groaning creak over bumps at low speed.

What are the usual culprits to start focusing my attention on to give me more of the plush luxury feel back that I'm sure this thing had 19 years ago?

Thanks!