Your uses are interesting, bit unusual, not odd just niche which make product development unlikely.
The disposal batteries in a phone are never going to happen. It's not the size of the battery it's the totally empty space needed to fit them in. Phone companies, not even 3rd party accessory manufacturers are also not going to trust degradable batteries with so much room for user error, poor contact connections and poor user practice to hook up to phones with heat and high voltage chargers.
Yeah, maybe. There are phones with >5000 mAh batteries now, although most of those aren't very optimized, to really take advantage of the extra longevity, the ones I've seen anyway.
I still think that people would be "elated", to be able to use their mobiles, full-tilt, for 2-3 days, and still have "enough juice left" to not stress...
I don't mean "disposable batteries", for the AAA, and AA, suggestions, I mean "rechargeable" ones.
It's pretty easy to buy high-quality, 3000+ mAH AA's, and similar AAA's, upwards of 1200 mAH now.
On the other hand, if I order a "random replacement LiIon cell", for my mobile, it's VERY hard to find one, aftermarket, that's of "known good quality", all the battery "re-packagers" have learned to put OEM-looking stamps on them, and even things like the "UL logo"...
Even IF you do manage to find a decent replacement, it's generally a HUGE pain to replace it, involving a lot of very precise cutting (glue around edges), sketchy prying, tugging, pulling, and swearing, trying to get a phone apart "enough", to slot the new battery in...
LiIon is a MUCH more dangerous tech to "get wrong" too, in terms of the line/signal that reports the temperature and charging-state, back to the input line, than NiMH.
Even so, there are also high-quality rechargeable AAA LiIon's out there, too, with even (obviously) higher energy-density, than their NiMH precursors, if you will.
I get that the era of "replaceable LiIon brick-batteries" has probably come/gone, but I think that a "standardized" battery, perhaps the newer AAAA (in NiMH or LiIon), with high-quality cells, at only 8.3mm diameter is "the candidate".
Or, maybe I'm just looking for "a solution without a problem", but I doubt it.
How many people pay some "random cell repair store" say $40-80, plus the cost of an "unknown LiIon brick battery", on a regular basis. I bet almost ALL of those people would be elated, if they could just undo a few screws, buy some decent (Panasonic, Sanyo, etc.) AAA or AAAA cells, pop-them-in, and go back to "full capacity", after 1.5 years of a mobile devices' life, for only say $10-15?
That "seems" like a pretty good, real-world scenario (well beyond my "niche" stuff), IMHO...
Good banter, BTW!
It's always "refreshing" to come over to XDA, from things like the ATT and OnePlus forums. There are some sharp people, who know the industry, on those boards, too, but "less so", on average ;-]
If I were writing much code anymore, I'd probably spend a lot more time on XDA, but I've moved over to the "evil Tech-PM" type of roles, although I am "that PM" who often jumps in and starts debugging stuff, or signs off on a code-review for check-in, which is sometimes appreciated, and sometimes just annoys people, it depends on the team(s) I'm working with...
What I"m really aiming for, is to find a tech-PM role that's mostly remote; I have a bad nerve injury, that prevents me from sitting or standing for any length of continuous time (although I can still put in a 2-3 hour ride, it's a "nerve neutral" position, for me, for about that length of time), so it's a "weird deal" to be a PM who's always "pacing around" meetings, even if I'm not presenting (presenting can make it easier, to stand-up/sit-down). I'm perfectly eligible for disability, although I just don't ever see that happening, I'm way too driven ;-]
I could probably be a moderator, in many places, but I like to "bring teams together" on tech-issues, even down to the individual-interface level (API, whatever), I find that much more satisfying, professionally, than doing "policing" ;-]