As a disclaimer, I really only skimmed though most of the posts on this thread because at this point, this topic becomes a tiresome circle of debate, so some of your questions, if not all, may have been addressed and answered to help you either make a decision or alleviate concern, but I’ll provide my thoughts anyway.
What are we talking about here; a weekend camping trip, or a prolonged week(s) journey? Most travel chargers hold up to 3 full charges and would suffice for a weekend. For longer trips, I would just use a portable battery pack (the same ones you would use for phones/headphones) to charge the travel charger itself. And what are the frequency of these trips? If you’re someone who makes a high number of extended trips like this, then I would completely understand why you would want to remain on the disposable battery train. But if you’re a weekender with camping/hiking, I don’t see why rechargeables would really cause any issues.
Yes, if you leave town and completely forget your charger, it would be a hassle. I suppose your best bet would be to find a local audiologist office and see if they would be kind enough to loan you a charger for the duration of your stay, or unfortunately, they might make you purchase it outright (the latter being the more likely outcome). For me, at this point, when it comes to travel, my HA charger is at the top of my priority list to double check before I head out the door, same as wallet/keys/ID. It’s more or less ingrained into my habit now, so it hasn’t been an issue (yet).
HAs charges should easily last a full day. I pop mine in shortly after I wake up, and don’t think much of it at all throughout the day, and when I go to sleep, I place them in the charger. I stream anywhere from 2-4 hours a day on average, take and make calls with them, for work and personal, and generally have anywhere between 20-35% left by the end of my days. If you have a somewhat regular schedule, and you sleep an average of anywhere between 5-8 hours a day, I don’t see if being a problem. (I have Oticon Mores, for reference) ***I will say, from having seen a few other threads, that the Phonak Luminity does seems to toe the ‘last the whole day’ line a bit, and some people have issues with those aids making it through a full day, so you may have to keep that in consideration. But this seems to be a nonissue for most other brands.
And honestly, if for whatever reasons, you find yourself enamored with those Phonaks, your workaround is simply popping them in the charger for a short period of time, for example, when you take a shower, or when you, erm… use the bathroom… but I would completely understand people choosing to avoid it altogether.
For the most part, my answer for #3 covers this. But if you were to forget to charge your aids overnight, or fall asleep with your aids in, then yes, you’d be stuck trying to intermittently charge your aids throughout a day, which quite frankly, would suck. It hasn’t happened to me yet though, as it’s simply a built in habit to pull my aids out and put it in the charger when I go to bed. I suspect for most rechargeable wearers, that is also the case. You may have to learn that habit the hard way once, but it quickly becomes an automatic function given how important the aids are for your day-to-day function.
As for home power loss, my solution is the same as an extended backcountry trip. I always have a charged up portable battery that I have for my phone anyway, it can also charge my hearing aid charger. If your power loss were to be incredibly extended, then yes, I suppose in that particular scenario, you could be SOL.
I only started wearing HAs a couple years ago, so don’t have as many reference points as some users here, but I have had zero issues with rechargeables, at least from a day to day use (I have had issues with the aids not functioning and needing repairs, but the issues have had nothing to do with the batteries). I travel a bit, have had multiple ER trips (when they happen, and family or friends comes to see me, they grab my HA and phone chargers from home, and bring them to me). On one of the occasions that my HAs were sent in for repair, the loaner my audi provided were the disposable battery version, and I absolutely hated the two+ weeks of random time battery changeouts, and having to have spares on me or accessible nearby. A lot of the firm stances here one way or another are really resistances to change (like my 2 and half weeks with disposables) rather than true issues of capability and function. There are most definitely cases where one is absolutely better than the other for certain people though – I’m not trying to discount that at all, like if you have frequently changing work shifts and don’t keep a regular wake/sleep schedule, or if you’re in a non power-reliable place, etc.
Hope this is somewhat informative and helpful, sorry for the novel. And I’m not looking to get into any drawn out back and forths with any of my points with other people other than the person who posted the original questions, so you can all take it for what it’s worth, or not. Cheers.