Relatively new iMac slow and stutters all of a sudden

I've been through all of the forums (I think), but nothing i've found seems to do the trick. Please bear with me, because i know that this is a common post, but I'm frustrated.
My symptoms are:
1. Machine seems to have intermittent freezes and spinny ball. Not total lockup, just stuttering.
2. Programs take forever to launch (compared to before)
3. File saves take forever (compared to before)
4. ALL video and motion apps stutter (quicktime, youtube, eyeTV, moving cursor on garageband, final cut)
5. Takes forever to shutdown/restart (compared to before)
The machine is still usable, for the most part, but NOT usable for anything video at this point.
My machine specs:
1. 2.8 GHz 24" iMac (mid 2008)
2. 4G RAM
Things I've tried to diagnose or fix it:
1. Restart: didn't make a difference
2. Repair permission on disk: didn't make a difference
3. Disk repair on boot volume: didn't make a difference
4. Ran the cocktail system and disk maintenance scripts: didn't make a difference
5. Monitored activity with Activity monitor and unix "ps" during the problems: didn't see anything stick out
6. Looked through the console and system logs: nothing stuck out
7. Have run the h/w diagnostics from the OS X disk: no issues
8. Have reset PRAM/NVRAM: Had a scare here, because i did this, and then the machine would NOT start back up. Just got the white screen (pre-apple logo and spinner), and it sat there forever. Had to do #9 below to get it back.
9. Reset the SMC: Well, it allowed me to actually boot the thing, but didn't make any performance difference.
10. Performed general cleanup of the HDD to purge anything not needed: no help
11. Drank Aventinus Weizen-Eisbock: Helped me, but not the machine.
Notice I have not yet tried to reinstall OS. I can't imagine why that would work. The problem here should also have nothing to do with any recently installed app, since nothing has been installed. The only thing that may have been installed would have been an Apple update (OS or other). Not sure i can pinpoint this to an Apple update because I don't when exactly the problems started in relation to the updates.
Any ideas, or places to look?
thanks

{quote:}Notice I have not yet tried to reinstall OS. I can't imagine why that would work. The problem here should also have nothing to do with any recently installed app, since nothing has been installed. The only thing that may have been installed would have been an Apple update (OS or other). Not sure i can pinpoint this to an Apple update because I don't when exactly the problems started in relation to the updates.{quote}
Hi John
Before doing a Reinstall or Archive and Install you might want to first download and install the 10.5.7 Combo Update to see if that makes a difference. The 10.5.7 Combo Update can solve minor issues within the OS X and would insure that your software is completely up to date.
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosx_updates/macosx1057comboupdate .html
If however you decide or wish to reinstall the OS X, an Archive and Install will save your data where as a Reinstall will wipe all your current data.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1545
I also noted that a MacBook just showed up in your profile. If it's a PPC MacBook and you migrated to the Intel, you maybe having software compatibility issues.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=435350
Dennis

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