The point is that single-cursor editing is a special case of multiple-cursor editing. If there's value in any single-cursor editing operations that don't use regex (or other indirectness) then they have value when used with multiple cursors, too.
The mouse doesn't necessarily come into the discussion at all.
Comments
If I want to change a word on one line, I find it faster to do <esc>cw replacetext rather than use the mouse to select the text and then replace text.
If I want to do that on 2-3 lines, I just use /findtext n and . to redo the prev command.
Anything more than that becomes a full search/replace.
Ymmv. It's just what I find efficient, given my muscle memory.
The point is that single-cursor editing is a special case of multiple-cursor editing. If there's value in any single-cursor editing operations that don't use regex (or other indirectness) then they have value when used with multiple cursors, too.
The mouse doesn't necessarily come into the discussion at all.