in 1996 I was of limited means and needed transport so I bought a brand new honda civic hx. it just turned over 210K on the odometer last week. it still gets 38mpg every tank full, slightly less than the 42mpg it used to get. I don’t think a hybrid could be that cheap to buy and run. I’ll be replacing it with a 4wd truck because my needs have changed, but I would certainly buy another one if I needed cheap transportation.
I'll bet most of your mileage loss can be attributed to ethanol in your gas. If you can find a vendor who sells pure, non-ethanol "enhanced" gasoline, I'd be willing to be you'd be back up to where you were.
I’m amazed at the mileage these cars are getting now. My motorcycle only gets about 39-40 MPG, and there are cars that do better than that.