... for example, I routinely grab a whole copy of Wikipedia.org and I have about 200 Megabytes of eBooks of all kinds ...

First of all, I'd like to clarify that I've been a proponent of AA cells - for EVERYTHING - for a long time, and have worked very hard to get the stuff I consider important for emergency preparedness to run on AA - and only AA cells. All lighting is LED/AA based, for example, as are the emergency radio receivers. However, my point in the stock of extra batteries was based in part on experiences we had down along the delaware river during the floods of 2004, 2005 and 2006. Although a relatively short-term situation, there were logistical challenges with resupply due to the river bridges being closed, and much to my surprise, we ran into a few situations where various devices - like garage door openers - went dead and there was nowhere to get replacement batteries.

Hi everyone.
Been around reading all the great info on the site and forums for a while now. Signed up a few days ago and thought I’d make a post.
I did not see it mentioned in the thread, but thought I’d give some experience on AA rechargeable batteries.
I have used AA NiMH for many years. The problem with them is that they lose their charge just sitting there doing nothing. Place a set in a digital camera and 3 weeks later when you go to use the camera, they are dead. Good thing for those 15 minute chargers….
A few months ago I read about a hybrid NiMH battery called Eneloop. They claim that the battery will still retain 85% of its charge after 1 year in storage. When you buy them they already contain a charge.
I decided to buy a 4 pack of them to see how they compared to the current rechargeable I use. Wow what a difference. I can go well over 2 months in the camera with light use with these batteries and still have plenty of charge. I do not change them in the GPS anywhere as quick as with the old rechargeable batteries. They work great in the Fenix L1D, etc, etc.
I now have around 16-20 of these batteries and love them. Whenever something with regular AA batteries in it dies, I throw in some Eneloops.
All the old NiMH batteries were given away.
I highly recommend the Eneloops.

Ok, first off eneloops are not hybrid, there is nothing hybird about them, thats just a marketing name made up by rayovac for their eneloop equivalent. You have to be careful with the names, for example my MIL went in to a PC store to buy a memory stick and came out with that sony crap instead of the USB flash drive she wanted.
Second get rid of those 15 minute chargers and don't recommend them, they charge 4x as fast as what any NiMH battery is supposed to be charged and the end result is your batteries that should last 500-1000 cycles end up lasting only 50. And thats if they last that long, many people report their batteries charged that fast like to die in the charger or at random during use. It would be a bad thing to be in the woods using your GPS and have its batteries die due to the bad chargers.