And that's just it, isn't it? I think hybrids are great and I like driving them, but everyone would do well to adopt the driving techniques that make hybrids really effective. I wonder how expensive gas has to get before people realize that flooring it away from every stoplight or stop sign doesn't get you where you're going much quicker than driving gently and smoothly.
All this to say that I'm as guilty as anyone of, um, unnecessarily rapid rates of acceleration from time to time. 
As for whether everyone would see significant fuel economy increases by driving like the proverbial Prius driver, I don't think it's that simple. In a Prius, there's a magic rate of acceleration, and a magic rate of velocity, below which something special happens which dramatically increases fuel economy. In a normal car, you save plenty of gas by driving in a "sane" manner instead of a "2 Fast 2 Furious" manner, but you're not going to save that much
more gas by changing from "normal sane driving" to accelerating so slowly that you obstruct traffic. EDIT: I know this because I once spent two gas tanks shifting at 3000 rpm (just as my turbo is spooling) and cruising at EXACTLY the speed limit on the highway (instead of the 15 kph over I normally do). I saw a fuel economy improvement of about 3%. Nothing to crow about.
As for wishing everybody drove like the proverbial Prius driver, God help us if that happens. In my opinion, when you're still 30 kph below the highway speed limit when you exit a highway on-ramp and merge onto the highway, you're a danger to yourself and others, so the last thing I want to see is EVERYBODY doing this.
