Thank you. Now to your questions...
Yes, I agree that Android usually should be left alone and all that is normally needed is a good initial setup.
On our devices location services, updates, all that stuff is left on. This phone hasn't been charged in 6 hours and Android OS is 4% and Android Sydtem is 3%. Remember, that's only 7% of the battery used, not 7% of total battery power, and active CPU time 58 minuted for both combined.
And, on this phone AquaMail syncs several thousand emails in 5 accounts every hour, plus running IMAP PUSH service .Still, it's at only 1%; and 24 min CPU.
Point is, all this stuff does not sit in memory drawing power. They sit cached in memory running only as service processes. In such a state, they are just parked in memory, using no significant power, just waiting for a call to action.
If something is staying active and not caching into memory properly then you can have a power drainage problem. Check your battery stats for a particular problem.
1. Location services will use power if it cannot get a lock on your position, it will just keep trying. If you're in the middle of a big office or basement about all you can do is turn it off, but when it's off you won't be able to use a locater to find it.
2 & 3. Should be using little power. See the explanation above.
4. Check to see if Gmail is making an excessive number of mail passes.
5. Sorry, can't help
Seems you're using aftermarket 'high capacity' batteries. They are often very low quality and you may actually get better battery life from the stock OEM battery.
DO NOT use any battery savers, task killers, RAM optimizers, etc. If, for example, you find you need to turn off location services at work but don't want to have to remember switch it off and on an app like Automateit can do that for you.