Oddly enough I'm going to quote you without trying to argue your statement. (And on the intarweb no less! ) I would absolutely kill...ok, maybe just harass ad nauseum...for the nutty steady-state highway FE afforded by one of Honda's lean-burn powerplants. The Prius absolutely rocks below 40mph where you can just get her up to speed and then shut the engine down while you glide to the next stop, applying a little battery power if you want to extend that glide. But a highway beast the Prius is not. It can achieve 50+mpg mind you, but a MT HCH-I (that one has lean burn) would just walk away from it at steady-state. Some days I wish it were financially possible to have one of each.