Yeah, the recall must have hurt. I had a LiPo battery and they completely replaced it with a hub battery and charger at no cost to me. In the course of communications about this, there was mention of insurance, so hopefully it wasn't fatal.
Powell, would you care to share what you are doing to protect the connectors? My system started shutting off randomly after I had ridden in some very light rain for only about a mile. Then, it would not come back on with the power switch, but would come on briefly if I disconnected and reconnected either of the data connectors. This was the first time I had the hub battery out in rain. I never had any trouble with the LiPo battery. The problem seems to have gone away after a few days of non-use. I suspect a connector problem, but I'm not sure how I'm going to troubleshoot it any further.
Good luck with the LiFePo battery project. I'm sure I am not alone in wanting to learn how you make out with that.