There are spans of days when the turbines aorund here do not turn, so batteries had better have a helluva lot of charge capacity. That is why the city in which I live has natural gas plants and the Greenies in Austin get the pleasure of the wind turbines (never mind that about 1/4 of the generated power is lost in transmission from here to Austin).
I am no fan of wind energy, but if, and only if, it is economically feasible would I consider it. As for batteries, I agree they may not be the answer. But, maybe compressed air storage would work. It appears Texas is playing with it because of all the old salt dome mines there:
http://www.seco.cpa.state.tx.us/re_wind-reserve.htm
Speaking of Austin, I read an interesting discussion in the book “Gusher of Lies” that said the nuke plant nearby was even cheaper than natural gas when we had that gas price spike a few years back. I would bank on nuclear before wind.