The Sprint store people told me the Q battery was operating properly when it only lasted a day. But for me it was only lasting a day when it was just on standby, heaven forbid I actually used it. Instead of the extended battery (no fat phones for me!) I just bought a spare battery
here. That's where I got some tips about maximizing battery life and now I can actually use the phone and the battery lasts for two or three days unless I'm doing a lot of web browsing.
But it sounds like you're doing the right stuff. Do you also go to Task Manager and close the functions you already thought you closed? That helps. The only weird thing with my phone is that when I'm at home it keeps trying to search for e-mail or text messages (whichever I've done most recently). The phone lights up for no reason and when I check it's been trying to call the mother ship or something. A few days ago it was trying to find Outlook e-mail and I've never even set that up. It only does that at home. Maybe it wants to be friends with the laptop.