I just got my iPhone 4S last month and updated the software to 5.0.1 when Apple released it. I don't have any issue with battery life - at least doesn't seem like it. I have charged the phone to 100% last night before going to bed and woke up about 7 hours later to find the battery only drained 2%, which to me seems pretty reasonable.
I'm not sure what services other users have turned on -- but this is what I have ON - everything else is OFF:
Notifications
Phone, Messages, Facebook, Calendar, Reminders, Mail, Messanger (facebook)
Location Services:
Camera, Compass, Fandango, Maps, Reminders, Siri, Weather
Siri: ON (with default settings)
System Services:
Call Network Search, Compass Callibration, Traffic
Fetch Data: Push is OFF; checking mail every 15 mins
Under Date & Time: "Set Automatically" is turned off. I set the time zone to NY and since I don't jump around the time zones that much, I didn't see any reason for me to set this automatically.
Auto-Lock: 1 Minute
Passcode Lock: On
Bluetooth: OFF
WiFi: I only turn it on if and when I am near by a hotspot that I use, otherwise I keep it off. I don't know if there is any way to turn this off automatically without thinking about it constantly, but if I remember I def turn it off when I am not using a WiFi.
Brightness: My brightness is set to default settings, but if played with it I could probably get a little bit more out of the battery -- but I'm not currently too worried about it since the battery life that I am getting is PRETTY DARN good.
Not sure if this will help the users, but that's what I have setup and battery life seems to be excellent. Of course depending on what other services you turn on, you may end up using the battery life a little bit more. I have also noticed that since the night when I charged my phone, right now (which is about 5:15 PM EST) -- about 16 hours later battery life is at 57%. This is also including talking with a few people for about 10 mins on an average and running an interview session where I had to use the display light for the entire time of 30 mins.
So I'd honestly think that the battery life is just fine -- some of the users may be setting everything on or not changing their settings to what they actually need and that may create a little bit of issue with the battery life.
Anyway, over all my verdict: Battery life on iPhone 4S is GOOD.