@
vancomycin,
I believe battery life on v5.1 to be great as I've posted a couple of times in the last few days. I've not talked on the phone for 2 hours straight since I've had my TP2, however. It's known that it takes one or 2 full charging cycles (empty battery, fully recharge, empty battery, fully recharge) after having flashed a ROM for the battery to settle in and for you to be able to get an accurate gauge on battery life.
My own personal goal with my ROM is not to have the least amount of stuff running or to save the absolute most space. To that end most of the data stuff is set up to auto sync at hourly intervels, screen is set with auto backlight off and set at the brightest option. Go through the ROM and make adjustements to things as you see fit. Dont' forget to go to Start Menu\System Tools\Remove Programs and uninstall the stuff that you don't want or use.
PIM Backup is all I've ever used to back up contacts since I had my TP. I've never had any problems with it at all. It saves all your contacts straight to your SD Card for easy backup every time.
I've posted a cab that will bring back the Calendar Tab background, like so:
Again, give it a couple of charging cycles and see if you find battery life to level out.