First of all, it would be wise to start threads like this in the rooting forums here. Secondly, battery life can and will vary from phone to phone. A poor quality signal, and 4G will suck the battery dry no matter what you try and do. Until Verizon optimizes their network a little more we'll just have to live with it. Use 3G as much as possible.
The kernel is the main cause of gains in battery life. Imoseyon's lean kernel has been one of the best performing as well as others. You can tweak it more by setting into batt saver mode, or creating separate CPU profiles. Just research the latest kernels, and play with some settings until you find one that works best for you.