My natal Mercury is also in Virgo, along with my ascendant. There are several things that need to be said here. Firstly, the things I've already stated are so because of the process of identification. How do you identify yourself? At the human scale, you identify yourself as an human due to the qualities that you perceive (topocentric astrology). At the planetary scale, how do you identify yourself? At the planetary scale, you are the collective consciousness of Earth, therefore you are centred in the Earth (geocentric astrology). At the solar scale, how do we identify ourselves? On this scale, we are the collective consciousness of the entire solar system (heliocentric astrology). Every time we move up or down in scale, we must re-identify what we are. Each of these three kinds of astrology can tell you the same things, but each one works in a different context due to the fact that you're measuring different collective consciousnesses at different scales. As long as you know what you're analysing, you can get useful information in the right context.
There are some people who seem to reject their charts entirely. Some people just demand to define their own lives and I think they may be the most informative cases of all. Besides that, however, most people shouldn't try to avoid their suffering. In fact, avoiding suffering is what got them such a nasty chart in the first place. I'm thinking from a Universe in which reincarnation is fact. No one is where they are by accident. Most people tend to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and measure themselves more forgivingly than others. This is the kind of behaviour that acquires karmic debt wholesale. Someone will end up with a tough chart when they need it. It's not punishment. It is the Universal presentation of what every individual needs to grow.