System becoming un-responsive after upgrade to Maverick

Question

After upgrading to Maverick I am experiencing massive performace problems to the point of the system not being usable.
System: 2010 iMac
Upgraded Yesterday morning, Upgrade process went smooth, no issues at first. First symptoms of problems were hick-ups in video playback, jerks in window switching. From then on over several hours the system became slower and slower to the point of being unusable. Performed system reboot, which took 45min, followed by fast degradation and unusability.
Attempted revovery actions with help from Apple support (thanks, even though the problem remains so far):
Booted system via the network into recovery mode, performed disk check: SMART status OK,  verified and repaired disk no issues deteced, verified partition, no issues detected, data volume looks correct.
Attempted normal boot-up, unsucceful
Performed powerdown, followed by opt+cntr+R+P boot, no success
Performed safe boot (shift), system came back up after 1.5 hours, extremely unresponsive, but at least it is up. I am scared to try to shut it down.
Diagnosis attempts: Other than time-outs, no unusual errors in console, file hirachy and files look Ok from terminal, access very slow. Can't see any obviously problematic processes in Activity Monitor, RAM usage about 2.5GBytes out of 12GBytes total, largest is kernel with 700MB, CPU not loaded, no high disk or network io. Evything looks to me like a pefectly normal system that runs at 1/100th or so speed.
Maverick managed to perform a time machine back-up over night and all earlier back-up are gone. So no chance to restore back to Mountain Lion that way.
Anybody with similar problems, any ideas for next steps?
Thanks

Answer 1

Here is the output, while booted into safe:
Video Information:
          ATI Radeon HD 5750 - VRAM: 1024 MB
Audio Plug-ins:
          BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0
          AirPlay: Version: 1.9
          AppleAVBAudio: Version: 2.0.0
          iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3
System Software:
          OS X 10.9 (13A603) - Uptime: 0 days 2:47:0
Disk Information:
          WDC WD1001FALS-40Y6A0 disk0 : (1 TB)
                    EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                    Macintosh HD (disk0s2) /: 750.37 GB (191.86 GB free)
                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB
                    BOOTCAMP (disk0s4) <not mounted>: 245.63 GB
          HL-DT-STDVDRW  GA32N 
USB Information:
          Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver
          Apple Inc. Built-in iSight
          Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub
                    Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
          Apple Internal Memory Card Reader
FireWire Information:
Thunderbolt Information:
Kernel Extensions:
Problem System Launch Daemons:
          [failed] com.apple.ucupdate.plist
Problem System Launch Agents:
Launch Daemons:
          [not loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist
          [not loaded] com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist
          [not loaded] com.google.keystone.daemon.plist
          [not loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist
Launch Agents:
          [not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist
          [not loaded] com.adobe.CS5ServiceManager.plist
          [not loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist
          [not loaded] SBA_ListenerAgent.plist
User Launch Agents:
          [not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist
          [not loaded] com.valvesoftware.steamclean.plist
User Login Items:
          None
Internet Plug-ins:
          AdobePDFViewer.plugin
          ContentUploaderPlugin.plugin
          Default Browser.plugin
          DivXBrowserPlugin.plugin
          Flash Player.plugin
          FlashPlayer-10.6.plugin
          googletalkbrowserplugin.plugin
          iPhotoPhotocast.plugin
          JavaAppletPlugin.plugin
          Mathematica.plugin
          net.juniper.DSSafariExtensions.plugin
          NP_2020Player_IKEA.plugin
          NPDjVu.plugin
          PrintDialogExt.plugin
          npgtpo3dautoplugin.plugin
          o1dbrowserplugin.plugin
          OfficeLiveBrowserPlugin.plugin
          QuickTime Plugin.plugin
          RealPlayer Plugin.plugin
          SharePointBrowserPlugin.plugin
          Silverlight.plugin
User Internet Plug-ins:
          Google Earth Web Plug-in.plugin
Bad Fonts:
          None
Time Machine:
          Skip System Files: NO
          Mobile backups: OFF
          Auto backup: NO
          Volumes being backed up:
                    Macintosh HD: Disk size: 750.37 GB Disk used: 558.51 GB
          Destinations:
                    Data [Network] (Last used)
                    Total size: 2 TB
                    Total number of backups: 6
                    Oldest backup: 2013-10-31 14:53:35 +0000
                    Last backup: 2013-11-01 14:14:20 +0000
                    Size of backup disk: Adequate
                              Backup size 2 TB > (Disk used 558.51 GB X 3)
Top Processes by CPU:
               3%          Dock
               2%          com.apple.IconServicesAgent
               1%          System Preferences
               1%          WindowServer
               0%          EtreCheck
               0%          coreservicesd
               0%          lsregister
               0%          Finder
               0%          mds
               0%          SystemUIServer
Top Processes by Memory:
          0 B                imagent
          0 B                autofsd
          0 B                networkd_privileged
          0 B                com.apple.imdpersistence.IMDPersistenceAgent
          0 B                com.apple.dock.extra
          0 B                usernoted
          0 B                logind
          0 B                airportd
          0 B                notifyd
          0 B                blued
Virtual Memory Statistics:
          8.72 GB            Free RAM
          1.84 GB            Active RAM
          780 MB             Inactive RAM
          689 MB             Wired RAM
          198 MB             Page-ins
          0 B                Page-outs