The real advantage of the MH, in my opinion, is not in the goods produced, but in the added pop. right now my MH provides enough pop to take the place of 3 residences. Thus, I have removed 3 residences and used that space for other things, including, perhaps, another mfr building.
If you do a square by square analysis you find the MH takes up 24 squares while my current residences take up 15 each so I gain 21 squares. My MH provides 12674 pop and 3 residences give me 11700. Divide 12674 by 24 you get 528 per square of pop, while 11700 divided by 45 = 260 per square. Of course you also lose the coin production of the residences, but if you pair the Mountain Hall with the Goldeyn Abyss you can make up for a lot of "missing" residences. My GA produces 2 times the daily coin production of my residences every 3 hours -- AND a total of over 22,000 population. So, by having both you get a real pop boost and a great coin boost. Since I added both and upgraded them I have removed 6 residences. Since the GA is only 9 squares I get over 2500 pop per square, compared to 260 per residence square.
The only caveat is that the pop of both the MH and the GA are based upon the working pop. Thus, the more residences you pull out the less effective they are. Which means there's a balance at some point. I'm still finding that balance but it appears I can remove 2 more residences without going negative pop. We'll see as soon as I upgrade my MH and GA again.
AJ