Mergesort and some claims on comparison

For the first fact, consider the array $1,ldots,n,n+1,ldots,2n$. Sorting its two halves doesn't alter the array. When the two halves are merged, the element $n+1$ would be compared against all elements in the left half.

The second fact is true for every $O(nlog n)$ sorting algorithm: such an algorithm performs $O(nlog n)$ comparisons overall, and so $O(log n)$ comparisons per element on average.

The third fact is true for every comparison-based algorithm: any such algorithm must perform $Omega(nlog n)$ comparisons, and so $Omega(log n)$ comparisons per element on average; in particular, some element is compared $Omega(log n)$ times.

Finally, let us note that the AKS sorting network corresponds to a sorting algorithm which performs $O(log n)$ comparisons per element (since its depth is $O(log n)$, and each element can only be compared once in each layer).