Bond energy and s-character While studying the basics of chemical bonding, I've often come across the following statements:
1. The bond energy increases with the increase in the s-character in a hybrid orbital, i.e sp3 sp2-sp2, and so on.

I can't seem to correlate the two. If a hybrid has a higher bond energy, shouldn't it also form stronger bonds?
Let us start with the following most important part of the IUPAC definition for the bond energy.


  bond energy (mean bond energy)
  
  The average value of the gas-phase bond dissociation energies (usually
  at a temperature of 298 K) for all bonds of the same type within the
  same chemical species.


I think it should be immediately clear now that the higher a bond energy is, the stronger is the bond, so that there is no any contradiction in a bond energy increase with the increase of the $\mathrm{s}$-character in hybrid $\mathrm{sp}^n$-orbitals.

Indeed, $\mathrm{2s}$-orbitals are lower in energy that the $\mathrm{2p}$ ones, and thus, the more $\mathrm{s}$-character a hybrid orbital has, the lower is its energy: $E_{\mathrm{sp}} &lt; E_{\mathrm{sp^2}} &lt; E_{\mathrm{sp^3}}$. The lower an atomic or hybrid orbital energy is, the lower is the energy of a molecular orbital in formation of which it participates, $E_{\sigma_\mathrm{sp}} &lt; E_{\sigma_\mathrm{sp^2}} &lt; E_{\sigma_\mathrm{sp^3}}$, and consequently, the higher is the corresponding bond dissociation energy, as well as, the average of them, i.e. the bond energy. So, the bond energy indeed increases as the s-character grows, say $E_{\ce{C(\mathrm{sp})-C(\mathrm{sp})}} &gt; E_{\ce{C(\mathrm{sp^2})-C(\mathrm{sp^2})}} &gt; E_{\ce{C(\mathrm{sp^3})-C(\mathrm{sp^3})}}$.

Below is the MO diagram for $\sigma$ $\ce{C-C}$ bond between two $\mathrm{sp}$-, two $\mathrm{sp^2}$-, and two $\mathrm{sp^3}$-hydridized $\ce{C}$ atoms that illustrates the logic above.