If I'm not mistaken, what people originally took for "memory" problems wasn't memory at all, it was pack failure due to overcharging. They would discharge their battery part-way, but then use a non-peak-detect-charger to charge it back up, over charging it. Do this 2 or 3 times, and voila, your battery doesn't hold much juice. Since you could avoid the problem by discharging all the way, at first glance it looked similar to the actual "memory" issues, which do exist in industrial settings, where a battery might be discharged to _exactly_ the same point many many times. Our usage has enough variability in the discharge level to avoid memory problems.

I suspect it was the chargers that got better several years back, not the batteries.

-Rick

P.S. Please feel free to correct me, since if I'm wrong I'd rather know it than not!