Truetype scaled font issue

Hi All,

I'm curious why many scaled fonts look perfect in Ubuntu 16 (freetype
2.6.1) , but terrible in Ubuntu 20 (2.10.1).

To reproduce in Ubuntu 20:

1. $ xfontsel -scaled
2. Select these options:  fndry=misc, family=fixed, pxlsz=17.
3. Observe ugly font.
4. Try other settings, notice how everything is ugly.

I came across the issue when I had to get the X server working with a
legacy application running in a VM. The app requests a scaled Liberation
font in XLFD format.

I ended up working around the issue by converting the font to a bitmap in
Ubuntu 16 using Fontforge, then copying the file back to Ubuntu 20 and
enabling bitmaps in freetype. So much pain!

Is this behaviour a bug, or by design?

Cheers,
Ben