ito the op, when my battery isn't randomly drained, the battery life is still horrible. i browse the app store for 5-10 minutes, play a couple minutes of games, maybe use mobile safari and the battery drains by 20-30 percent.
Mine does that too sometimes, but not as much with 2.1. I think mine is just a symptom of an overworked iPod. All my iPod show this symptom around the one year mark. My previous 30gb 5.5g would not even play music for more than 1.5 hours without being hooked up to a charger, but it was out of warranty, so now it lives in a dock to play music. My first Mini died in 6 months. It wouldn't even hold a charge when it was plugged in. Took it in and got a refurb. Refurb died in 6 months also. So, iPods just don't have very enduring batteries. I may be an unusual user because I use mine daily for about 4-5 hours, but it certainly is not as good as it was new. As for your problems, it looks as if the Wifi is killing your battery, and the games are known to do that as well. That is more than usual though, at least for me. How long have you had your touch? Mine is showing symptoms, but it is just over 1 year old. You may also want to let your touch's battery die completely, then fully charge it. This could just be a battery calibration problem. Luckily it's still alive and somewhat kicking. Gotta get it to live until MW09.
To the OP:
I usually listen to music for about 3-3.5 hours, play games for about 30 min-1 hr, use Safari for 10-20 min, and spend 20-30min watching vids. So my total average usage is about 4 and 2/3 hours per day. Usually this drains my battery about 40-50%. I have to charge every night, and if I don't I have to lay off the usage the next day, or it will not last all day.