OSX lion on iMac09 model - Recommended ?

Question

Hi,
I have a late 09 model Intel iMac with 2.66 Dual Core and Upgraded to 8GB Ram running 10.6.
Recently i have been facing lot of issues with Disk persmissions etc and a  drop in performance in general since i have been using this machine for extensive graphic work in last 2-3 years. And now i was wondering if a format and clean install will help me get the performance back.And hence this question –
Do you think this old model can take Mountain Lion ? Or ML uses too many processor resources and won't be a good choice ?
Also, i defintely want to do a clean install instead of upgrade – So any pointers in that direction will be helpful.
A bit more information :
I am finally forced to upgrade to Lion because my superdrive doesn't work. So i can't repair my HD using existing snow leopard disk that i have. It just won't take it. And i have searched and realized that almost everyone faces troubles with superdrive and they hardly work properly for long time. I had this one replaced just last year. So, is there any other (safe) way i can repair my HD without the need of superdrive ?
Nitin

Answer 1

I can repair disk persmissions. Though some are never fixed – But i searched and realized that those are 10.6 specific and it's safe to ignore them.
And about Super Drive, it is strange, it's almost new and rarely used but it just totally rejects few disks and sometimes for few disks it just works fine.