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HT7333 Voltage Regulator

This week I'll put the HT7333 voltage regulator into a circuit. I chose these for an IoT project centred around the ESP8266, which needs an input of ~3.0-3.6V. At the time I was using either 6V lantern batteries or 3xAA (4.5V) batteries which (would have) fried the ESP8266. Initially using a linear voltage regulator, I was a bit shocked by the losses in the conversion (and therefore how quickly the batteries drained), so looking around and using this video as a guide, I chose the HT7333 for it's low quiescent current (4μA).

I'm not convinced now that it is the best option as it can only output around 250mA - and often the ESP8266 needs a little more beef. I've tacked on a 1000μF or a 2000μF capacitor sometimes to act as a backup for this situation when the ESP8266 wants to connect to the internet - but now I get a bit worried about losses through capacitor leakage.

From the datasheet

I have both TO-92 and SOT-89 packages for this IC, and definitely the TO-92 is easier to solder - but I do like the smd packages and the challenges that arise from their use (plus the size is sometimes important).