barplot xlim shifts axis -> offset to axis at=midpoints missing - bar-chart

Question

I have the following problem – it is purely an ascetic one but it bothers me that it is not looking nicely:
I generate a simple sideways barplot with ticks at the bottom of the bars. The default setting generates an x-axis which is shorter than my bars (figure 1). To solve this I included xlim. Once I do that the x-axis is slightly shifted to the left so the y-axis is touching the bars (figure 2). This does not look nice at all. I guess xlim somehow overwrite a default parameter but I could not find which. I would be grateful for any suggestions!
rm(list=ls())
data<-c(69,500,597)
names(data)<-c("text1", "text2", "text3")
midpoints<-barplot(data, beside=T, space=1, xlim=c(0,600))
filename=paste("orig.pdf", sep="")
pdf(file=filename, width=10, height =5)
par(mar=c(4,9,1,4))
barplot(data, beside=T, xlab=expression(paste("Text")),
axes=T, cex.lab=2, cex.axis=2, cex.names=2, font.axis = 2,
col=c("grey"), horiz=T, las=1, font.lab=2, space=1,
names.arg=colnames(data))
axis(side = 2, at = midpoints , labels = F, cex.axis=1.5)
dev.off()
filename=paste("with_limit.pdf", sep="")
pdf(file=filename, width=10, height =5)
lim<-c(0,600)
par(mar=c(4,9,1,4))
barplot(data, beside=T, xlab=expression(paste("Text")),
axes=T, cex.lab=2, cex.axis=2, cex.names=2, font.axis = 2,
col=c("grey"), horiz=T, las=1, font.lab=2, space=1,
names.arg=colnames(data), xlim=lim)
axis(side = 2, at = midpoints , labels = F, cex.axis=1.5)
dev.off()
Figure 1
Figure 2

Answer 1

Meanwhile I did find two possible answers both not perfect but working.
The first one is to work with xaxs="r" but for my taste now the offset is too large.
filename=paste("solution1.pdf", sep="")
pdf(file=filename, width=10, height =5)
lim<-c(0,600)
par(mar=c(4,9,1,4))
barplot(data, beside=T, xlab=expression(paste("Text")),
axes=T, cex.lab=2, cex.axis=2, cex.names=2, font.axis = 2,
col=c("grey"), horiz=T, las=1, font.lab=2, space=1,
names.arg=colnames(data), xlim=lim, xaxs="r")
axis(side = 2, at = midpoints , labels = F, cex.axis=1.5)
dev.off()
Solution1
The second option is to have xlim starting in the negative. This has the disadvantage of tuning the offset by hand. In my case I had multiple figures and I wanted it always to be the same so I used (here) 2% of the maximum 600 -> 12. For all others I also used 2% of the maximum. That worked nicely in the end.
filename=paste("solution2.pdf", sep="")
pdf(file=filename, width=10, height =5)
lim<-c(-12,600)
par(mar=c(4,9,1,4))
barplot(data, beside=T, xlab=expression(paste("Text")),
axes=T, cex.lab=2, cex.axis=2, cex.names=2, font.axis = 2,
col=c("grey"), horiz=T, las=1, font.lab=2, space=1,
names.arg=colnames(data), xlim=lim)
axis(side = 2, at = midpoints , labels = F, cex.axis=1.5)
dev.off()
Solution2