Well, regarding battery, it's pretty much the same, although it feels a tiny bit better. I don't give it an excessive use, but I do tend to check the phone a lot, third party online music player always on, and chrome also. Either way, the power draining seems to come from the display, mostly. If a way to reduce it was implemented, it would do wonders.
I'd like to make a suggestion, I have no idea where the proper place to do so is. I think MIUI launcher should have an option for the grid. It makes no sense to force people to look for another laucher, or mods, to achieve something that's already present in most launchers.
And it should be possible to customize the statusbar thoroughly, switching the clock, signal icons and such around. Again, MIUI being a "custom" ROM, it should include the stuff that people look for to escape stock android...
Ah, and one more: why restrict the theme choice? The chinese have a whole lot of themes to choose from, and we're rather limited...
I would dare say: please mod the ROM in order to include some popular mods and tweaks, add the chinese themes and MI video version, and make it available as a secondary choice. The main version as it is, and the secondary version for the picky people like me.
Ok, so it wasn't just one suggestion, sorry about that. But thanks for the attention, keep up the good work.