I've been refurbishing some of my own and friends 2009 MBPs. Specifically the 17" and 15" models. Taking out the main board and blowing out all the gunk. Repasting the heatsink with high quality paste. Factory heatsink compound was very stiff but not uncommon for 10 year old thermal paste. After putting back together the CPU temps didn't really get much better. Under synthetic load with prime95 I'm able to get the repasted CPU temps up over 100C on both the 2009 15" and 17". I don't get temps like this with my repasted 2012 MBP or retina MBPs. The heatsink the 2009 models feels ever so slightly meager in size and mass although I didn't weigh it.