Safari infinite syncing

I had iOS 6.0.1 and updated to 6.0.2 and noticed I had a hit in battery life. I noticed regularly that my phone would get very hot to the touch and I would lose up to 40% of my battery in a hour. When 6.1 was released, I updated in hopes this would solve that issue. However, it didn't...it seems to have made it worse. Now, before I get flamed for complaining, let me be clear: losing 40%-50% of your battery in a hour with NO USAGE isn't "normal battery drain". Plus my phone gets blazing hot.

Now, I will explain different trial and error methods I did in vain to isolate the issue. First, if I switch to airplane model, the device will cool down and battery holds. That's fine, except I use my phone for work, so not being able to have phone calls / emails doesn't work. Next, I began to turn off various functions of the phone and it didn't seem to really make a difference. I've let my battery drain and plug it into a wall socket. No good. I did a hard reset (home button and sleep button held down) - nada. What I did notice was when I launch safari, I get the sync icon that stays on as the browser is open. I can't bookmark anything, as I get the message that bookmarks are syncing. This will run indefinitely (the sync). My battery drains at an alarming rate as safari is open. My belief is that safari sync is stuck in an infinite loop of syncing (or trying to) to iCloud. I have tried turning sync off, but that doesn't help.

With all that said, I had issues with iOS 6.0.1 that I noticed safari bookmarks would not save on my iPhone 5 and continued through iOS 6.0.2 to 6.1. I'd like to resolve this issue. But at this time, the only two options left are a factory restore or a trip to the apple store for an "official" diagnosis.

Has anyone else experienced what I'm going through or is it unique to my device?