I'm thinking that if that Aveo is this old and it hasn't had any major problems you should be good to go. My dad had a 2009 Aveo5 LT (bought new) and it started showing some very major issues around 2012, like stalling when you started to let the clutch out (well before the clutch would have actually engaged). None of the Chevy dealerships seemed to be able to fix it. No bueno.
Not sure how the automatics are, but the manual transmissions are very strange beasts. On my dad's car, no matter how good you were you couldn't get a smooth shift from 1st to 2nd unless you shifted at around 3000 rpm. It's funny, but after being used to driving that car I felt like a pro the next time I drove stick.
It seems kind of strange that the struts went so quickly on it, though. My old 1995 Saturn SC2 had its original struts until around 2008. Then again, it was always a fairly low-mileage vehicle (I got it in 2002 with around 54,000 miles on the odometer) so that could very well be why.
Sorry to hear about the ol' van. It looks like it was in pretty good shape before that happened, too.