Agreed. I feel like there was one more ''big'' Batman story with Bale that took place not that long after the events of The Dark Knight. He did not go into retirement immediately and is being hunted by the police Mask of the Phantasm style.
My head-canon (and many fans I read of) is that he was Batman for quite awhile longer. Blake and Gordon say last "
official sighting" meaning by cops.
The people like Blake, the orphanage kids and other citizens know enough about him and want him back, in
Rises. And they still believe in him. That, to me, didn't seem like people who last knew him as Dent's supposed killer.
There's no reason that young boy Blake interacts with would miss Batman, since he himself is like 8.
I imagine Bruce continuing as Batman for a year or two - dodging cops but still doing his job, to diminishing returns as the Dent Act pushes him to irrelevancy and he begins focusing on his efforts in energy as Wayne.
It just makes more sense according to the story and the wiggle-room of ambiguity Nolan left for when he exactly quit.
Bruce had a functioning Batcave, a suit locker, gear, Alfred hints he did go down there a lot at one point, his body is far more wrecked by the film than he was in the previous, people too young to remember him actually do, etc.
