The Dreaded Beach Ball

I have a late 2008 MacBook - yes I need to upgrade - but I'm still in school and my MacBook works (mostly) most of the time. Yes more and more I am getting the dreaded 'Spinning Beach Ball of Death.' Its irritating to say the least. I haven't really changed anything on my computer since I bought it. I back up regularly, I clear out my caches, I restart, reboot ... whatever - but alas here it is again. DAMN you BBOD! I've done just about everything I know how to fix it and still nothing.    

          It worries me that these incidence are becoming more frequent now that Steve Jobs is gone. Has the quality gone out the door with the King? I do 'like' Tim Cook - but Steve Jobs he is not. I don't think he is quite the 'perfectionist' that Jobs was. If Steve ever had a SBBOD on his laptop - I bet heads would roll. Yes I know my computer is 5 years old - but who says a computer has to be 'retired' every 2 years and upgraded for the latest and greatest? I'm tired of the 'cycle of computing products' getting narrower and narrower. You buy the latest iphone and 12 months later there is a new better one out. Yes, I know thats the cycle of 'computer life' but can't you purchase a product and have it last at least for a few years before it becomes incredibly slow and painful to use? 

          Are things really getting faster or are we just becoming more impatient? Sometimes it feels like a 'built- in' graduate of electronics that get slower and slower - on purpose so you have to upgrade (eventually). When I first got this laptop - it was a SCREAMER! I loved it. Now it feels like it has the aging, clogged arteries of a septuagenarian. I haven't loaded a bunch of things on it? I don't use the computer any differently than I did 4 years ago when I got it. So what gives?  I'm waiting for a pharmacological ad telling me 'Tell your doctor what your mac needs and order .....'