let's re-word the thread title. The HAH itself doesn't have MPG problems; it is only a machine, after all, and does exactly what its design constraints and operator make it do.

Now the trick, as an engineer, is to use this 'problem' as the motivation to build something that will meet the original, possibly unrealistic, expectation, even for the inexperienced or unconcerned user. That is how technology advances. Then there will be some other 'unrealistic' expectation that the new generation fails to achieve, which motivates the next advance...

PS- I split this off from the main thread.