Civilians were being evacuated the entire fight.

I'm not sure you understand how populated New York City is and the fact that you think the Avengers evacuated everyone even within that particular section of the city including its buildings is asinine and wishful thinking.

Civilians in the streets were minimal.

Again, baseless assumption. You barely get any shots of the people running for their lives as is so how exactly did you come to the conclusion that there was a minimal number of civilians in the most densely populated city in America,maybe the world, during the peak hours of city transit.

Cap's orders, which then became the NYPD & NYFD orders, were to use any & all means to keep people off the streets.

And? Just because someone's given orders doesn't necessarily mean that everything is going according to plan. See the aftermath of any real life disaster with police trying to get people to safety for reference. When people fear for their lives, like during an alien invasion, they won't be thinking about what a cop is telling them to do.

Hell, most people could've simply stayed put indoors and been fine, because...

I'm sure the people in the buildings that Hulk skipped through thought everything was fine, didn't panic, and decided to stay put....

The letters falling off of Stark Tower were about as big as it got

Uh I'm pretty sure a couple of big ass fucking space ships were bigger than some building letters.

And did you watch the director's cut or something? Because you keep saying that the streets were vacant when there's was no evidence of that whatsoever.

most injuries being limited to cuts & scrapes due to clear streets.

Do you have a source for this or is this wishful thinking?

Nice for you to provide your input but honestly, it sounds like you're making a lot of assumptions rather than providing facts. You clearly loved Avengers and despised MoS. We'll just leave it at that.