Just to give an update, not that people are enthralled with following my progress...

Did everything suggested in the first replay (re-flashed, SCCU, power-kernel). Looks great. Added Advanced Power, and that seems to show my battery going up and down properly. Battery still seems like it might not be hugely accurate, but I'll give it some more time (bought the Dream battery).

Also, if I use the pidgin protocol addon for Conversations/Contacts, is there any reason to have actual Pidgin? Or can I just do everything through Conversations? Also, and this is getting a bit down the rabbit-hole, but does anyone know (dumb questions warning), since older phones used to do this, if sending IMs through say, AIM, on Conversations, is charged to my texting plan or data plan?

I ask because I have a data plan, but no texting plan. My hope is to use Conversations, with the help of the protocol add-on, to send IMs to people phones via AIM as a work-around for paying for texting.