Couple of questions - Gaming laptop

Maybe not 3 months, and maybe not half priced, but the un-upgradeability of laptops tend to make them outdated quicker than desktops unfortunately.

1) Not sure what the specs are for your dv9000, but the addition of a powerful graphics card will make /all/ the difference when playing. If yours is a media PC, chances are the graphics card isn't powerful enough, and is bottlenecking your system during gaming.

2) Yes, and shoddy quality/customer service

3) There's plenty of selection out right now that you could look at, though I can also suggest the OCZ Whitebook or any companies offering it.

4) They'll probably drop, they always drop as time goes on, but you can wait forever for a "better price"

5) They're pretty good, though expensive, not sure you really need one. Just make sure you get a good mobile hard drive, (Tom's has a mobile hard drive guide you can check)

6) And money is not an issue...personally I'll recommend Killer Notebooks, good products, great support (quick response, knowledgeable), customizable (etchings and other cool stuff) and they do heatsink mods on some of their models to help drop temperatures. I would suggest their version of the OCZ Whitebook, the Nagamaki, but either way, look around. They're a bit more expensive than other companies out there, but I think the service is much better with them.

http://www.killernotebooks.com/entrance_page.aspx

The main difference between HP dv9000 and a new Alienware is the GPU.
If you can get a remarkable promotion depends on the GPU you select(All of these laptops' CPUs are high-performed, so that's not the problem).
Best GPU like 8800M SLI can beat top desktop. If you think it's too expensive, you can choose 8700M, which is about 30% better than Go 7600 in dv9000.

By the way, SSD can give you a really different experience. That's true!