I’ve had enough healthy batteries (good voltage, not expired) leak on me in varying circumstances…
- In numerous maglites (which exert appreciable pressure on cells)
- In a number of rectangular device battery compartments (which exert a heck of a lot less pressure on cells than maglites)
- In storage (under no undue pressure)
… that I just don’t use alkaline cells. I suspect that much like how downward price pressure on CFL’s has squeezed quality, the rapidly-declining price of alkaline cells has removed quality from them.
Rather than alkaline I use lithium primary (low-use emergency items such as flashlights) and a combination of standard and low-self-discharge (LSD) NiMH for everything else. The LSD NiMH have such a long standby life that there’s little reason for nearly all of my use cases to bother with alkaline for AAA/AA, which is most of what I use these days.