Well thanks for the info CaptCarrot, I'll look into picking up a few of the Eneloops and throw it in to the mix. Looks like these are $3-4 a cell. Not cheap but I might be able to use it. The one year warranty doesn't inspire confidence in trying it, but I like the feedback on them. And no, I don't see myself switching.

I actually looked around the pad at what is being powered by AA and AAA and it's actually very little and at a very slow rate. I haven't come close to charging a drained alkaline and if I had any equipment to tell me the charge, it was probably in the 30% drained category.

The biggest "drainers" were the bike lights. Even then I never had a problem, but I also never drained them that bad.