I have a Verizon iPhone 4 and I think it's at least as fast if not a little quicker than iOS 4. I turned off all the iCloud stuff except Find My iPhone.
Battery life for me is actually a little better than with iOS 4. I think the 5.0.1 update made it worse than 5.0.0, so I'm anxiously awaiting the 5.0.2 update to see if it improves.