Evita Battery Life w/ Data Connection topic

So I've been tinkering with my phone for about 5 months now, searching forum after forum in hopes of getting some decent battery life out of my Evita. The best I'm ever able to get having mobile data and WiFi on throughout the day is about 9 hours. That's with light to moderate use (an hour of streaming music, 2-3 hours of screen time, only mail and calendar sync for Google, 0-20% screen brightness, no games, and being around WiFi for about 70% of the time). That benchmark was reached with CM 10.2, boosted kernel, sweep to wake enabled, and GPS on for about 1.5 hours. I can get about 16 hours if I disable all sync, underclock the kernel, disable all internet connections except when I use them (about 2 hours of the 16 on a normal day of checking email, reading news, syncing accounts and such. No heavy stuff such as streaming video etc.), and disabled GPS. However, I figure what's the point of having a smartphone with data connectivity if being connected means I can't even make it through a very light use work day? I've had my phone replaced once by AT&T because 8 hours was the best life I could get on stock period. That was with data and WiFi off (about 3 hours with internet on). I considered buying an external battery case to get a more normal battery life but can't justify dropping 0 bucks when that's what I paid for the phone with a contract in the first place.

Anyway, is this battery life normal? And if not, is there anything I can do to increase my battery life and maintain mobile data connectivity/WiFi? I would also love to be able to keep my GPS on as it's frustrating to wait 5 minutes for my GPS to find my location so I can find my way around. Whenever I need to use my maps. Anyway, it doesn't seem like this is a normal smartphone experience I'm having but I could be entirely wrong.

Thanks in advance.