Gazelleer wrote:How would you define 'looking after' a battery?
Lithium Ion batteries should not be left fully discharged and nor should the user take it for granted that the battery if stored fully charged will maintain that full charge forever, even if it is not in-circuit - it won't.
Proper battery maintenance includes a periodic (I'd recommend 3 months) re-charge to "charge light out on the charger" status, in order to prevent under-volting (as permanent damage to a Li-ion battery by this route is called). Hence the recommendation in the EPS PU manual.
Campagnolo use some extra components in the PU that basically switch off a left-switched-on system once the battery output falls below 7.2v in order to slow down the drain on the battery ... but those components won't protect the battery from the eventual damage caused by the natural degradation in charge that all batteries suffer from over time, whether attached to a circuit or not. Once the battery has fully discharched by this natural degradtion route, the chances of damage by under-volting start to accumulate (if you'll forgive the pun).
Storage above 50 deg C and below -20 deg C is also damaging to the battery used in EPS and can again lead to shortened battery life or a reduction in the number of charge cycles before the amount of charge that can be accumulated starts to fall off significantly.