MacBook Pro :: Flickering Display, Aluminum Clam Shell, Trackpad Not Working?

Our display flickers on one side and has multicolored vertical bars running down the left side at best, or the whole screen greys out over the top of the graphical display, is physically no longer fully attached on that side near the hinge (you can press it down quite a bit after it has been closed), and the aluminum clamshell seems like it's warped.  The bottom access panel has become no longer a smooth fit - it sticks up a few millimeters at the gap instead of being flat. We used to be able to hold the back left side and the screen would work, now we have been sitting it on a wooden structure with a back support and pushing it against that so we can see the screen for the past year or two.  Now the flickering vertical bars are getting worse and the wooden support doesn't always work, and as an added bonus, the trackpad recently stopped working (it no longer 'clicks' and acts like it's constantly pressed down, so we have to use an external mouse with it).  It's pretty frustrating because we've babied this thing (it's never been dropped or abused and has only left the house like twice, and one of those times was to take it in to see about this very problem!) and it seems like it's a manufacturing defect, but of course we never had AppleCare and this powerful expensive beast is now a desktop computer with a super hard to see screen.  I've been told we need to pay $400 to get a whole new clamshell.

Info:
MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2008), Mac OS X (10.5.8)