Pharmacoapple,
Setting sleep to 'never' won't harm your battery in a macbook pro.
Since you can attach your power supply to it.
And because this battery has intelligent chips on board, he knows when to load, or not.
If you have your screensaver on, set it to 5 or 10 minutes and choose your computername,
your display won't damage. And set the backlite (F1 & F2) NOT to maximum, but let's say to 70 or 80%.
Restarting your mac, ipad or iphone regularly is important.
It helps - in simple words - cleaning up, regenerating and repairing several things.
Downgrading to an incomplete 10.8.1 won't be my advise.
Downgrade for just this sleep issue, although annoying, is a bit over-the-top,
but you have to decide yourself. Tips and tricks how to do downgrade can be found in another topic.
Make sure you back-up all your personal data before doing so...
Best regards,
Danny