Ubuntu :: Kubuntu Karmic Koala Kde Desktop Titlebar Missing?

I was running kubuntu 7.10 from 2007 till two days back. Thought it quite old, so wanted to upgrade from 7.10 to 9.10, and if I like the latest kde 4 (since I've not used it yet), the plan was to use the lucid lynx. The two phase upgrade from 7.10 -> 8.04 -> 9.10 went seamlessly without any hitch. But now the problem started to occur, and I will point them one by one:

1. While booting, the startup splash screen falls into a console which read "checking battery state DONE" and it stays there forever. So, I opened another terminal by ctrl-alt-F1, gave my login id, password, type startx to go into the graphical mode.

Everything looks fine, though I find the new KDE way of changing the keyboard shortcuts ( like ctrl-alt-D to minimize to desktop) or difficulty of assigning keyboard shortcuts to applications, or the maneuvering of the panel, no quick launch space, etc.. a, well, bit difficult. But that another issue. Now I wanted to shutdown, there is one button say leave and if I click there it shows, "Sleep", "Hibernate", "Switch user", "Logout" etc. I didn't understand whether Logout will actually shut the system down. Now, while shutting down, as expected, it falls to the opened tty1, and from there I had to do a shutdown -h now to actually shut the system down.

2. Now, Iwanted to add some application to the quick launch section (just right to the K- button). After adding them, I messed the panel, I can't see which application I am opening, the minimized state is not showing and the total panel length is reduced. So I searched some ubuntu forums, and removed the .kde folder and restarted the system. The biggest problem started from there, whatever application I open, there is no title bar (the top bar where minimize, maximize, close button is available). And the system hangs completely. I tried the do

Code: kquitapp plasma-desktop or removing the plasma-* from .kde/config/ folder, but to no avail, the system is getting worser.

3. Also, I noticed the konqueror is crashing while trying the open that.

I have an internal intel graphics card. Now, please advise what I should do, should I go back to 7.10 again, is there any I can fix the desktop graphics. I have no problem in doing anything in command line to fix the issues.