dirk, let me introduce myself first..my name is Gerry and I don't know much anything about car or about our Boxster except for putting the key to the ignition, drive it and bring to the indy shop that I trust to do all the maintenance work and other stuff..for short, I just drive, put gas and detail it every 6 months or when season change.
with that said...just reading thru all the things you've been finding out in the car, scares me
IMHO...I won't touch it, even for $3K but that's me.
listen to Randall and PL..they've got experience about fixing our Boxster on their own pocket.