Help With Toshiba Qosmio X505 Q8100xb

i have several question about up dating my qosmio x505 q8100xb. let me first say i am not very computer savvy. i bought this used was only a few month's old when i got it,and only paid $325 for it the guy needed the money real bad. so i can put several hundred dollars into it and still be ahead of the game plus hopefully have a smoking machine. it has the i5 2.3ghz chip in it 500gb hdd, 4mb ram and the nvidia geforce gtx 460m video card in it. one thing i want to do is change out the processor from the i5 to a i7 some where between a 2.8-3.4 ghz depending on what i can get it for. i know the mother board i have has the correct socket LGA 1155. is doing this up grade as simple as just changing them out, and is there any software update's i would need to do? and does anyone know how much of a performance jump i should get? another thing is upgrading to a 120,128 or 256 SSD again depending on cost,is this upgrade worth the expense and time it take's to do it. if so what are the benefits of doing it? the last thing i am thinking of doing is putting in a blu-ray player maybe a writable one. i know the screen i have right now is not full hd only 1680x945 i can get a new 1080 screen for about a hundred bucks if i wanted to go that far. i've got a friend hat can get me this stuff at cost so i'll save some coin's there. i know some of you will say just to buy a new laptop i am not wanting to do that, and the cost of a new one with any thing close to what i am wanting to do start's around 1300.00 and sky rocket's from there. i know with all these up grades i wont come any where near those prices. not that it does any thing i just think the qosmio just look's bad ! what i am trying to do is get it as "future proof" as possible some thing that will stand up for the next couple of year's. oh yeah i will be increasing the ram to 8mb's. one other thing i forgot to ask. seeing how i'll have the case opened is there any thing else i should do to help the computer out, other then blasting it out with air? any thing like thermal paste, better fan heat sink or what ever? if so what product's would you recommend and why? thanks to anyone that responds