I appreciate your candidness, @cwatkin . I have driven manual transmission vehicles as my primary vehicles for over 25 years, roughly close to 300,000 miles worth of driving, a significant portion of which was suburban stop-n-go driving. This stuff you mention about adjusting the clutch cable, putting extra wear on the throwout bearing, etc. . . none of this ever crossed my mind in all those years. The one rule I knew and observed was, “only put your foot on the clutch pedal when you are actually shifting gears”, and I have never had to replace a clutch (knock on wood). Had the clutch CABLE snap last year, but that was after 22 years / 190,000 miles of service.
Perhaps I should “retire” from shifting gears undefeated and go ahead and buy a CVT car. 
To be perfectly honest, even after all these years and all that experience with manual transmissions, I couldn’t tell you exactly where along the travel of the pedal the clutch engages, exactly. But somehow I know when it doesn’t “feel right”. I knew something was going before my clutch cable snapped, didn’t know what, but given the age of the car, figured as long as it was working I wasn’t going to start screwing around with it.
Gotta agree with @db4690 , “No adjustments should be necessary on a brand spanking new car, IMO " also, " What is that saying about the quality of the car, in general?” Yeah, what else needs adjustment, aligning, fine-tuning? I’m sorry, and no offense intended, but this is a Big Red Flag. My other big red flag was that the engine had a lot of vibration to it at idle, very jittery. The engine on the Fit was so smooth by comparison, you had to put your hand on it to feel any vibration. (And I hate to say this, but now that I think of it, the engine on my 23 year old 200k+miles Festiva isn’t jittery like that) Perhaps its the whole 3 cylinder versus 4 cylinder thing. 3 cylinders is inherently unbalanced whereas 4 cylinders is inherently balanced?
I WILL SAY, however, I see the Mirage as a direct decedent of the 1988 - 1993 vintage Ford Festiva. Simple, basic, honest, super high m.p.g., no-frills transportation, at least no frills within the confines of all of today’s government mandates i.e.- ABS, ESC, TPMS, etc. and so forth. . .
If it proves to be as reliable as you claim, @cwatkin , then I’d say its a nice little car, probably best suited, as I think you first stated, for those who are either doing courier service or have a very long highway commute and know they’re going to put 200 - 300k miles on a car in 10 years.
There were two additional rebates we “don’t qualify for”. As my colleague pointed out, if he were to produce a military i.d. or a Mitsubishi registration card, they would have to give him those rebates, which tells you there is more “money on the table” if they really want to move those cars.
Edit to add: About a decade ago, I briefly worked for a courier service as a side gig. Because you were an “independent contractor” you had to pay them for the uniform, the radio, and the equipment, 6% deducted for a basic workers comp policy, double social security tax, not to mention fuel cost, wear and tear on your car, plus if you got any parking tickets, car towed away for being in a loading zone, etc that was YOUR problem. . . AND they kept sending me downtown where the streets are nothing but deep potholes. . . . seemed like I almost owed THEM money at the end of the week. It was a fun job in terms of seeing different places I would never have had access to otherwise, but I think if I wanted to drive around all week for no “net” money I’d do better to volunteer to drive a bookmobile or drive for Meals On Wheels, etc.
