Kudos to Skype for adding new settings in their latest iPhone app that should address some of my earlier complaints. It looks like the app can be set to sign out of Skype immediately or after a delay when it is put in the background. This means the power drain should go away.
Of course, I’d like the best of both world: have the app stop communicating with the Skype servers after a time, but allow a notification message to wake it back up in time to re-establish connection and answer an incoming call. I’m sure if such things are possible, they’ll work on it, because I assume the purpose of a Skype app is to help people use Skype as much and as well as possible.