No battery life issues here--I get through a full day with plenty of juice to spare.
I adjust all app settings for the way I actually use the phone. I don't need Yahoo to be push, nor do I need to know what's happening on Facebook every 30 minutes--so I adjust my apps accordingly. I live in an area with good 4G service. When I'm at home, I'm generally on wifi. I leave GPS on all the time (never understood why I would turn it off, since it's only really on when an app needs it). Acceptable app settings for me are Google Mail is push, Yahoo is once an hour, Facebook is once every 4 hours, Twitter is whatever the default is, any weather app is about once every 4 hours, Google+ is always on, DoggCatcher is when I open the app, SportsTap depends on the season. Lookout is always doing it's thing in the background. NO task killers!
One thing that I've always found helpful with EVERY Android phone I've owned is that I restart it daily. It's just part of my morning routine. I don't know if this really helps or not, but I like that I'm starting fresh each day and don't have a lot of stuff running in the background from the moment I unplug in the morning. I feel I accumulate a lot of open and running apps during the course of the day without also dealing with yesterday's leftovers. Again, no idea if this impacts things, but I've always had good luck with Android battery life using this approach.
The only app I've disabled is Verizon Contact Backup.
In no way am I a power user, but I do use my phone a lot, and have zero battery problems (except when I'm playing Jelly Defense!). I do own a spare that I generally have with me, but very rarely use.