Well, with a total usage of 24 hours, I don't think 2hr 35 min SOT is bad by any standard. For a 4+ hours SOT your phone would have died in 15 odd hours. Stop worrying and enjoy your phone.
Re: Can you explain the benefits of stock android?
the GPE would have its bootloader unlocked. this means easier rom flashing and Dev support. consider that if you like putting new roms on the phone
moto x has a dedicated low power speech processor which listens to you while consuming less battery. other phones can listen too but would end up hogging a lot of battery. the processor is application specific and won't do anything generic.
Got rid of hangouts. Just don't like separate threads for sms and hangouts chat. the purpose would be solved when all messages with a person show up in a single thread