RE: working age of Ni-Mh
I beleve I am in agreement with Rodney only I like to keep things simple. Since I only have just a few Lipo's but a very large number of Nimh as well as some Nicd I prefer to keep things simple and I do that by charging all of them (Nimh-Nicd) in the same way and that is the overnight rate.
Yes the Overnight rate is the C.10 thing, heck I might have written that incorrectly but heck we are talking of the same thing and that is I charge all of them at about 1/10th of the the rated capacity. In other words Your 2500mah gets charged at 250 mils. Thats what works for me.
Now on to the cycling thing. All I can say is I abandoned that practice long ago Simply because it never made any real world differance for me, Perhaps others? I do not beleve I have been any worse the wear for my omission though.
I do attempt to replace batterys at around two years. This is difficult at times so I attempt to keep a good fresh supply on hand for replacements at all times. There have been a few occassions where some may not get flown in that period but unused or not the pack gets replaced next time out. Batteries should be treated as expendables and receive regular replacement.
I do beleve the figures you expressed are right on though.
John