As others have mentioned, no hybrids were available when I bought my Limited AWD. I figured that it would take several months before anyone in my area would have a hybrid in the configuration and color that I wanted. But mainly, I wanted to buy now, and wasn't willing to wait even another week, let alone several months.
As for mileage, my average has been increasing, and I'm pretty close to 30 MPG -- which I expect to get well over, after a summer's worth of driving. On the open road, I've seen "trip summary" reports (which show for about half a minute after you turn the ignition off) of 40.5 MPG, and many between 38 MPG and that. Heck, my trade-in was a 2015 Corolla S Premium, and about the best I got from that on the open road was 42 MPG -- that's just not very far off, with the RAV4. Also, I should mention that I'm retired, and I'm not doing a lot of "in-town commuting" that might return better MPG from a hybrid -- no, I'm doing mostly highway and freeway driving, which presumably wouldn't benefit so much from a hybrid system.
I have found My RAV4's car-calculated mileage to be quite accurate -- far better than the Corolla's ever was -- with differences usually less than a tenth of an MPG between the car's numbers and my calculations. So, I have respect for those "car calculations."
To put my current MPG into perspective, the RAV4 has been right between my previous two cars -- a 2008 Camry SE V6 and that 2015 Corolla. About 5 MPG less than the Corolla, and about 5 MPG better than the Camry. That is absolutely not bad whatsoever for an SUV.
So, I'm happy enough with the mileage. And while I comprehend that a hybrid can do better, I just cannot get past the expense of "when you need to replace that hybrid battery." Which I estimate to be "around $5,000," and required when the vehicle has lost a rather whopping ton of trade-in value. I suppose, in the end, it's not so much the extra cost of a hybrid to purchase, but rather "that plus the cost of replacing the hybrid battery" that I could buy a heck of a lot of gasoline with.
I'm also a bit leery of CVT transmissions. Oh, my Corolla had one, and I had no complaints about driving around with it -- but Toyota offered absolutely no instructions whatsoever in terms of what you should do to properly maintain it. "Inspect" it starting some time after 100,000 miles, and that was the end of it. Sure, go to any dealership or any shop, and they'll do everything they can to get you to do a transmission flush, or whatever. The local shop I've used for around 35 years was very honest with me -- "Yeah, our invoice system always puts stuff like that on our invoices, but we can't even hook up a CVT to our flushing machine." And so on. No worries -- just do some research on the Internet. And find several thousand, entirely different, recommendations from everyone in tarnation. At least with an automatic transmission, you have shops that know what on Earth to do with them.
Finally, while I didn't comprehend it when I made my purchase, I have come to really value the torque-vectoring AWD system in my Limited AWD. I really haven't gone off-road, and I have very few plans of doing so -- can you say "parking lots out in fields?" But, when you put the Limited AWD in Sport mode, on-road, you can really feel the difference, compared to the other on-road modes. And you can see the difference with the AWD display. I tried it a few times on local roads and didn't notice much of a difference, but the first time I tried it "up on the twisty mountain roads," the difference was notable -- and it sure felt like a much better driving experience. Yes, I understand that the hybrids have their electric motor system, but I don't know how it compares to the mechanical torque vectoring system for on-road driving. All I can tell you is that I don't use Sport mode very often around town, but I'll definitely switch over to it when I'm on highways that go up and down hills, and around curves.
So, that's why I didn't buy a hybrid, and I remain happy with my Limited AWD. Sure, I wouldn't mind better MPG numbers, but my average has been increasing, ever since I bought the vehicle. I'm looking forward to seeing how high it will go!