despite the sucky battery life.
How often you need more than 6 hours of powered up recoring time? That's about my safe limit using LSD NiMH AAs and the updated firmware that's been out a few years. I have a couple small external lithiums each of which would run it for an entire weekend back when the original firmware depleted AAs in about 2 hrs. but haven't used them since the update.
For a show with board access, I doubt I'd need more than 4-5 hours tops (more likely need around 2-3). If I was using it with a second set of mics on a stand (say my AKG Actives and 853's), I might need about 8-10 hours per festival day but that's easy enough to do with a second set of rechargeable batteries.
Suffice to say, I think the DR-2D will be more than adequate for my needs.