Maybe a hybrid approach. There may be some parts that you could remove and sell separately that would not adversely impact the sale price of the vehicle.
I'm getting around 15.5-16. I agree, you don't buy jeeps to get great mileage and it does get better mileage than my dodge ram. But it would be nice to be even close to the rated mileage on the sticker.
According to this article, automatics have surpassed manuals in modern cars in fuel economy.
https://www.slashgear.com/1540178/do-automatic-or-manual-get-better-gas-mileage/
5'11
I got the Hooke Road dead pedal and it does come out a little bit further than I like so may need to make some modifications to it to get it to sit back a little further.