welcome to the forum. this is a great place to get information and get ideas/techniques from some really great drivers.

Your 28 mpg seems low to me. "Regular" driving for me usually yields around 40 mpg. However, my driving is 80% highway. The uphill trips really suck the life out of your MPG! What are your downhill trips netting? Have you checked? One thing I learned to do is to drive conservatively on the downhill part of my trips so that I had a "cusion" on my return trip, because there is no good way to hypermile uphill. Just doesn't work...

To answer your question, I don't think hybrid technology is good enough to compensate for regular driving habits, especially nonfavorable conditions like short trips and uphill trips. Having said that, hybrids have enough gadgets and features that if you just alter a few things you can really push your mpg to the sky. The impg is probably the single greatest thing on the car. If all cars had one the world would be a better place...

good luck! Hope that helps...
jco