Maps doing stuff in background? That's the location service being used by another app, commonly weather apps.
As for G+/Talk, disable sync or sign out of Talk.
As for G+/Talk, disable sync or sign out of Talk.
And is location service tied to application named "Maps"? If so, that might really be the case.. although I only have this problem after I use Maps, not when I use other apps that require location.
I totally understand your points, though. I use an older device with roughly the same specs, and when I was using stock 2.3 it wasn't very fast.