4S battery drain - I've turned off everything - almost

Question

So, to start off, I've turned all locations and most notifications OFF.
I have my emails on manual fetch, and I do not have an exchange account on my 4s.
The battery drains about 1% every minute when I'm at work, and it can become very warm when I have it on. I attributed these to the phone constantly searching for 3G in the area.
At home, I put the phone on wifi and charge it fully every night before i go to bed, but every morning i wake up with more than 12% battery drainage.
I called Apple Support, the advisor told me it might have been all the apps running in the background, so I retested with all apps closed. To be on the safe side, I also turned off wifi and 3G, so basically only the phone service was on overnight. But the next morning I wake up to find about 6-8% drainage.
This is not normal, as i have two other 4s in the household, and their battery life is way better than mine.
Just now, I put the phone on airplane mode and took a snap shot of the usage data, and locked the phone (all apps in background closed), 15 minutes later, I checked on it, it's 1% drain, standby time showed the difference in between, but the usage time increased by 5 minutes!!!! WTH??????
I've tried everything I've came across reading threads here and in Macrumors, but nothing helps. Did I miss something somewhere??
I really want to go to an Apple Store to exchange, but the last advisor I spoke with made it sound like there is no easy way just to go in and exchange, that they must do more test, blah blah blah....
And the big problem now is that I heard Apple stores already have refurbished ones. If I am able to exchange after all, any possibility that they will give me a new phone instead of a refurbished???
Thanks all!

Answer 1

zioweb,
Well I am completely sympathetic with your disappointment in the batter life of your phone.
There are a couple of things you may be dealing with one is just the normal relatively short battery capabilities of the iPhone and second is many people have had phones that appear to have a malfunction that depletes the battery at an alarmingly fast rate.
You might want to take it to a service center and have it checked out.
Also - you are not the only person that has become disenchanted with smart phone battery life. I don't think it is coincidental that Motorola came out with the Razor MAXX that has a 3300 ma/hr battery and is advertising it as the only smart phone that will give you a couple of days use and the option to leave your charger at home on an overnight business trip. I personally would have one but they only make it for Verizon (I am ATT) and I don't like Verizon... but I am having second thoughts about my allegiance to ATT and the under powered iPhone.