outtokill7

Obviously dust is going to be a big issue, but like mentioned above make sure that you don't have anything running that shouldn't be. It can be quite common to find that a program is being a huge resource hog whether it be malware or not. Cooling pads could help, but they seem like a cheap and dirty fix to me. Last resort would be to change the thermal paste depending on the age of the laptop. Be sure to give it a thorough cleaning inside and out (software too).

1080p is much better. No question. Anything less looks ugly to me now. You can probably find a screen on the internet somewhere pretty easily, but you really need to make sure that it has compatibility. You would be doing some major surgery to your laptop to do the upgrade, so as long as you are comfortable with that, i'd go for it.

I always found that the extra ultrabay devices weren't easy to find. I managed to get a second 650M for my Y500 to replace the DVD drive. If you only want it occasionally you may want to look into just getting a USB drive. Might be cheaper and easier to obtain. They are also plug and play so you don't have to shut down to swap the drive.