Macbook (A1185), with dead battery. Worth upgrading?

I have a white Macbook, from 2008 I believe. The model number is A1185. It is running 10.5.8. It has been extremely sluggish the last year or two and it gets very hot. It also would not power itself down and was stuck on the white screen with the spinning wheel. I'd always have to give it a hard shutdown. I cannot run the CS3 programs without pulling my hair out. I have 10.6, but haven't been able to upgrade it since it wont turn on. My goal is to upgrade the Macbook's RAM and get more HD space so I can eventually update to Lion and run CC. The battery stopped charging a long time ago, but it would stay powered if it was always plugged in. Then it started randomly turning itself off after 10 minutes or so. Now, it will not turn on at all with or without the power supply.
I really only need the Macbook a few Adobe CC programs, and of course a little bit of music, photos, and surfing the web. I don't hardly do anything with videos. The majority of my large design files and heavy use with Adobe programs will be on my iMac.
My question is, would it be worth buying a new battery so I can turn it on and upgrade the Macbook? If a new battery would even fix the issue, I am not sure it could handle any kind OS upgrade. Is it even possible, and less expensive than a new Macbook, to improve the Macbook's performance? Or am I better off, with less headache, retiring this laptop and getting a newer Macbook?
Sorry for sounding like such a newb. I am proficient with software, I just don't understand the hardware side...

+The light on the adapter cord was green when I attached it, but then went to orange.+
that's ok/normal
+After about 10 minutes of charging, it would power up.+
i don't know. but it is normal if it follows my first theory; you tried to turn on the computer while it was dead so you pressed the power button to turn it on. it did not turn on so you checked battery and then plugged it in. light turned orange and charged the battery for a bit.
the computer was trying to turn on the whole time because you pressed the power button before but did not turn on yet because it did not have enough charge. when it had enough charge while it was charging it continued through its booting up process and powered up after 10 minutes of charging, give or take.
+Will a Macbook not power on with a just the ac hooked up?+
this is the part where I'm a little confused because it should. your macbook should turn on even with the battery gone. according to you the battery charged for a while meaning that the battery is still alive and not corrupt. this is not normal.
but there is a very rare occassion that I think occured to me. I was in a situation where the battery was COMPLETELY dried out and dead to the point where even the flashing light on the battery(indicating your battery needs charging) did not turn on. in this situation my battery took less than 1 or 2 minutes to start up, i don't know why it takes longer. as far as I know it should not take 10 minutes.
as long as the battery works its ok but you may want to check the battery health. you can do this by downloading coconutbattery or iStat(for your dashboard). the battery health indicates how much does your battery use the battery's full capability/capacity. if your battery health is low, you may want to buy a new battery.
p.s. Merry Christmas!!!

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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!

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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..."
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I'm posting this to put it out there just in case someone else has had similar experiences. My MBP is a 2007 with the Intel Core 2 Duo 2.15 GHz processor running 10.6.8. I've had it since 2009, and it has been a flawless machine for me until recently.
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I took it into a local business that specializes in Mac repair since it was vintage. After a day, the tech called me and said that the battery was split and that my other issues were probably logic board problems, and the logic board would be hard to find and expensive to replace. He said I might be able to use it without the battery, but that obviously would be a pain. The tech felt such pity for me that he did not even charge me the diagnostic fee.
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Macbook (A1185), with dead battery. Worth upgrading?

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