The low gearing is a marketing decision, it makes them peppy.
This is what I got on my wife's old Xterra with a calibrated UltraGague and years of hypermiling under my belt on a commute I've been doing for even longer. I like to think of it as the theoretical maximum one of them can get.
You're so close to my numbers that what you need to do is
get out of it as soon as possible. Anything mid sized or below with a manual is going to pay for itself immediately in driver satisfaction, and pretty quickly in gas.