Another MBP 15" (2011) with dead Battery... or is it?

Question

Bought in August 2011, now 15 months ago so warranty is void of course.
Yesterday morning I plugged my MBP in after being left in standby mode during the night. Noticed the battery was 50% and charging. I started working as usual. During the afternoon I noticed that the palmrest was unusually warm - not hot - just warm! I didn't think much about it though as I was busy working.
Suddenly out of nowhere - boom! - it just dies! Black screen, stone dead! Im startled, just sitting for several seconds and just watching the black screen. What the h*ll just happened?
So I press the power button and it whims alive again, but immediately enters a loop where it starts up and shuts down again after a few seconds, starts up, shuts down.... this happens maybe 15 - 20 times. Power led (or the SIL which I now know is the correct name) is flashing, some times rapidly and some times slowly.
After MBP going completely nuts for a good while it finally boots to desktop. But battery is at 0% and not charging. Under the menu it says "Replace now".
My first thought was "Oh, is this the infamous SMC / PRAM bug" ? So I read up and try all the reset tricks. YES! ALL OF THEM! But to no avail.
Can the battery really break down like that?  It only has 76 charge cycles according to System Information. Apple says its good for 1000 cycles!!
Folks, I doubt the battery is broken just like that. I think it's the SMC that has gone bonkers. Why? Because:
- Battery not charging (obviously)
- Fans are not spinning up even under 100% CPU load
- Screen flashes erradically during boot (it didn't do that before)
- Keyboard light can not be adjusted
- SIL (power led) flashes 5 times on power up
So I was hoping I could fix it by re-flashing it, but I can't seem to find any info about this. I don't know if re-flashing the EFI would help, but even this seems impossible.
So, here I am with a perfect, mint condition $3000 laptop that is not a laptop any more. I can only imagine the "repair" costs. Thank you Apple for selling me expensive, polished junk! This is my first Apple and I was hesistant shelling out so much money for a laptop, especially after reading about many people complaining about their failing machines. Seems I should have listened!
If anyone have similar experience or have any tips on how to fix the SMC, please post in this thread.
Thanks.
Don
Model Name:          MacBook Pro
  Model Identifier:          MacBookPro8,2
  Processor Name:          Intel Core i7
  Processor Speed:          2.2 GHz
  Number of Processors:          1
  Total Number of Cores:          4
  L2 Cache (per Core):          256 KB
  L3 Cache:          6 MB
  Memory:          8 GB
  Boot ROM Version:          MBP81.0047.B27
  SMC Version (system):          1.69f3
NEVER AN APPLE AGAIN!

Answer 1

UPDATE! UPDATE!
The battery has now started swelling, until I can no longer press down and click on the trackpad. This laptop does not have a removable battery, so I can not remedy the situation since it requires special tools.
The battery is still swelling as I type. I guess I will spend the rest of the day, watching as my $3000 laptop slowly explodes from within and dies while I'm helplessly patting it on its lid, whispering "there... there..."
Again, Thank You, Apple!