I have had similar experiences. In the last few years I've ridden 4 different road bikes to work. One was aluminum and 3 were steel. In terms of ride quality amongst all the bikes, the aluminum bike ranked 2nd. The first was steel but I think that has more to do with fact that it was a touring oriented bike with long chain stays than it does with the frame material.

However, there are plenty of people who are convinced that steel gives a better ride so what I would recommend is to test ride a bunch of different bikes paying no attention to frame material and pick the one you like best. If it so happens that the one you like is steel, great. If not, that's OK too.