It appears that when I call replaceScene, the spriteBatchNodes in my scene are not released. Each time I replace the scene, the "living" count goes up by one.
Each of the objects stored in the spriteBatchNode, is not just a CCSprite - It is a class derived from CCSprite with additional behavior.
What could cause the spriteBatchNode to not be released? None of the nodes I added to the spriteBatchNode are released either.
I unschedule all the selectors that are running on the nodes that are part of the spritebatchnode.