MacBook shuts down spontaneously when on battery power

My 2.0GHz MacBook has started shutting down spontaneously after half an hour or so of waking from sleep. After it shuts down, when I try to reboot it it shuts down straight away after the boot sound.
Plugging the power cable in seems to allow me to boot, but it has also shut down randomly a couple of times whilst plugged in.
Is this enough of a problem to get an entire machine replacement? I also have the stain issue (early signs of unremovable stains after only two weeks with the laptop), the moo issue, casing around the screen that is loose and at least ten keys that sit on the keyboard at an angle with one that was broken from the day I opened it (the "." key no less).
Will I be able to get a replacement unit if I go to an Apple Store genius bar? I'm thinking either London, or Bluewater. I only ask because I have a conference that I need to report from in the next couple of weeks and can't afford to:
a) wait for repairs if I send it off to Apple
b) trust Apple to fix all the issues I have with the machine.
I want a complete replacement, that's the only way I have a guarantee this problem won't come back in the middle of an interview recording.
Thanks in advance for your help,
Conrad

What do you mean with "shutdown"? If it powers off all of a sudden, without kernel panics or going through the OS shutdown procedure, then it must be somehow related to the hardware.
I had a similar behaviour (random power offs and inability to restart my MB for a while) after installing two new RAM modules. I noticed that putting back the original modules solved it so I inserted the new modules paying more care and eventually everything started working properly.
Good luck...

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