Updating multiple apps (more than 3 or 4 at a time) crashes my Touch 6. With my other iOS devices, I can just hit Update All and it does. I've always blamed that on the 1GB RAM. So, 2G and faster chip is good but I have no compelling reason to upgrade mine to the latest and greatest.
To preserve battery life, I never allow Auto Update or background processing. It's the only way I can get the "almost 40 hours" of music playback promised by Apple—and I do...almost.
I still have my decommissioned iPhone 7+ and had the $29 battery special done last December. My first thought upon replacing it as my phone was, "Now I have an iPod with truly decent battery life". I use it for field recording, audio and video. I tried using my Touch 6 for this but battery life was horrible—if I got 2 hours with the Shure MOTIV video app, that was good. Now the 7+ gets that duty.