Just bought a 2010 for the wife in Aug and it pulls almost 40mpg on the hwy. Her dad just bought one also after putting 248,000 on his 98 civic. The clutch and water pump went out and the dealer still gave him 3000 for the trade. The one even better thing about the newer civics is that you no longer have the timing belt replacement issue every 60k. On the older Civics and Toyotas you needed to change the timing belt every 60k or so to avoid it breaking which would cause the piston and valves to make contact. No More belts its a chain now Just and FYI we drove the Civic and Toyota offering back to back and the Civic has a bigger interior. Both were about the same on performance with the Toyota handling more like a sedan and the Civic more on the sporty side for handling. We drove several other offerings that were in the same class as the Civic and in my opinion the Civic wins hands down. The resale on a Civic is also a huge plus. If you take a Civic, or a Toyota, with a 100k on it and another car of the same year, class, and millage the Civic and Toyota will have a much higher resale and trade value. The one thing I do not like about the Civic is the lack of room under the hood compared to the Toyota. I do a lot of my own work and due to the styling the Civic has a cramped engine compartment which makes getting to repairs harder, but the trunk is huge for such a small car. Oh ya the dash and spedo on the newer Civic is a little funky looking, but do not judge it untill you sit, adjust the stering wheel, and drive it. After a short drive you will see that the dash set up was done this way because its easy to see all you gauges with out ever having to glance down.
So far we love out Civic and are glad we went that route. I do not think that they changed the body or made any big changes for 2011 so price increase should not be that bad.