I should note that I've had random issues with severe battery drain at times with all the ROMs (UTStarcom's, original 3.3 and Colonel's). It happened to me yesterday hence my post above after discovering the hardware button issue. But if that's not it, I'm still not willing to assume this is something about Colonel's ROM automatically, I think it may have something to do with the phone, push email, or the software I have installed.
Sorry, though, thought it might be an epiphany for someone.
I'm going to leave the post up though, because I think it's an important setting that people may overlook since it's a change from the last official ROM.