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footroom for six-footers in the rear is sort of superfluous, no?
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Well, no. Unless you are feeding them growth suppression hormones, kids grow -- like weeds. I also need space for the in-laws when they come for visits (often extended, seriously extended).
I did my time with multiple car seats. A Mazda 5 would be a nightmare getting squirming or sleeping kids in and out of the back row -- and I have a bad back. A lot of children's car seats require almost as much leg room as a full sized adult, because the seats lift the child's feet to mid-back or higher of the seat in front. Getting kicked in the kidneys on a long drive gets old fast. The infant carriers that face backwards are even worse for taking up space.
We drove an '86 VW GTI with our two oldest, but when the twins came (we had planned for only one more, to keep us in a sedan or compact station wagon) we needed a third row. The little people movers available at the time had no appeal for me, as they were all too cramped and they did not get appreciably better mileage than a minivan. The Mazda 5 should more appropriately be labeled a people mover but that marketing term and design disappeared with the advent of crossover SUVs.
My father kept a state surplus grand caravan in his driveway for many years, just to have enough seats to take grandkids (well, some of them anyway) around. He found an extra rear bench and put it in the middle to give it 8 seats with seatbelts.