So it seems that Google's applications aren't an huge battery/resource hog.
Tried Google+? Just opening it by mistake (and immediately closing it) is enough to start glgps and kill my battery in a couple of hours, until I reboot.
That!! I now completely disable Google+ and advice all my friends to do the same. I actually enjoyed some of its features like automatic Photos Backup.
But then I would find out my phone's battery died overnight, while it was almost full before I went to sleep, like what the hell? After few weeks of keeping an eye, I found out it was Google+. Hunderds of complaints on Android emailing list, 0 comments from developers.
Google+ is a single Google's project driving me away from being their slave for life.
I'm not an huge Google+ user, so no, sorry. My usage of it it's limited to few bored moments where I just open the website.
Anyway, I'd install one of those "minimal" packages that contains only the Play services and the Play store, and eventually install the various Google apps (Maps, maybe Keep) from the Play Store.
Tried Google+? Just opening it by mistake (and immediately closing it) is enough to start glgps and kill my battery in a couple of hours, until I reboot.