MBP:Dead video and Super drive(with phsical damage on the case) What to do with it?

[AsianGIRLpure]

Well, I've had the MBP896 for about 3years, but in july, it was hit by my tennis racket, which casue some physical damage on the case right above super drive. So, the super was dead right away. About one month later(August), the HD was also dead and I replaced it with a new one. Since then my computer worked well. But recently(Nov), the video card(8600GT) failed ago(same thing happened to me one year ago) Computer can boot, has chim and I can even hear the MSN login sound A TYPICAL VIDEO CARD FAIL CASE. So, I send my computer to the genuis bar, then they send it to Austin Texas apple has arepiar center there. Today, I got a call from a techinician there telling me the total cost to wholly fix it will be $1240, I'm kinda shocked by the number and I told him that I ONLY want partial repiar which is the video card. But he told me the problems were connected which means in order to make the video card work, the super drive along withth the case should be fixed first. Well, personally I don't buy it, 'cause my computer worked just fine with the damaged super drive and case for about 3 month. Then I called back 1 hour later tring to convince the technician but a lady from customer service center answered my phone, after about 30minutes argument, she told me they will lower the price to $900 to have everything fixed, well, that's still too much for me. You might wonder what's my question anyway, here are some alternative solutions I came up, hope some more experienced users here can give me some solid and sound ideas

1 Go with the $900 repair(I spent like $2500 in 2007 to buy the MBP, so should be worth to pay the $900)

2 Forget about the repair, sell the parts and get a refurb one, which can be done by a little more than $1000

3 get this problem done by some private technician on ebay, which ony gonna cost me around $250, but they only promise to replace the chip not the while LB, since i'm not sure if the LB should be replaced to fix the video card fail. Plus the risky factor doing business via ebay, I'm kinda hesitate to do so.

4 Since I'm used to use MBP and I really like it. So, how about going for the Powerbook with good configuration or the Macmini that's also a great way to experience Mac.

5 told to apple repair center one more time, for god's sake, please just fix the video card problem.

Well, u mignt think it's unnecessary to make myself into such trouble, but I'm a poor college student who don't make big money, I also don't want to bother my parents


So, please, can u provide any comments on my thoughts or if u have better ideas, please tell me, I really appreciate.