So far the driving force for this project has been an occasional need to run older tools with discontinued/unavailable (usually NiCad) batteries for short periods of time in a relatively controlled test environment, so I haven't yet bothered with the thermal protection circuit (which the tools may not have originally supported). In order to actually use the tools as tools I'll need to have some kind of controller in the adapter to monitor the battery charge level and temperature to make sure the battery isn't being overdischarged. This is handled by a built-in controller in modern tools but I haven't tested how they interoperate with onboard PCBs in different batteries.
Side note: I've been surprised learning about how much technology is in modern battery-operated power tools. There's a circuit board in the handle of pretty much every drill that communicates with the battery and trigger and runs the motor. A lot of them are potted in epoxy but sometimes I've spotted an Atmel chip in there.
You can buy (I am using them now) adapters so you can use a Makita battery in a Ryobi tool. The idea of battery teams is ridiculous, team <color> is ... I can't even. With the adapter, I can pickup a Ryobi specialty here or there. They make them for other combinations but I haven't used them. I have a Ryobi battery from a refurb tool purchase the combo set was cheaper than the single tool w/o battery. Homedepot confuses the hell out of me.
Right now vendor lock in to batteries (that have no guarantee of being available in 4 years when the battery inevitably dies) just makes too much money.