Well it turns out that CM for me is more laggy than the stock ROM, surprisingly, so I ended up switching back to the stock AOSP ROM and flashing Franco kernel instead (just the free version). Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like my battery life has improved at all with this kernel, the battery still drains at the same rate it did before when I'm using the tablet and I end up getting around 7-8 hours of onscreen time by the time I hit around 10 percent (battery drain in sleep mode is 1-2% every 8 hours or so).
Actually the only reason I was interested in rooting and getting a different kernel or ROM at all is because I want these BLOODY RANDOM REBOOTS TO GO AWAY!