the day my macbook pro died...

Here's what I have:
macbook pro, 2.16 intel core 2 duo, 2 gig memory, running system 10.5.8.
It was not holding a charge, and wouldn't work without being plugged in, so I replaced the battery. Still having the problem, so I decided to do a system reinstall. First of all, upon putting the original system disk that came with the computer, it gave me an "cannot install OSX" error. So I tried to erase the drive and start from scratch (using diskutility). It acts like it's erased, and it appears to be erased, but it only took 2 seconds, and I still get the same OSX error. Now it won't fully boot from the disk or the startup - at the moment it's frozen on the purple space screen -- I can't even turn it off now. I tried unplugging from the wall -- and of course, now the battery appears to hold a charge!!! To make it even better -- the apple forum page won't respond (times out). The laptop is only 2 years old, but I'm ready to dropkick the thing out the back door btw -- I've been using macs for 26 years - so I'm not new to it.

Are you 100% sure that DVD is the one that came with your MBP? Those are the symptoms of the wrong machine specific DVD.

Well, I guess I'm 99% sure -- It came right out of the original box. I should be able to at least shut it down with any disk in it -- I can't. I can't get it to power down at all to open it up and remove the RAM -- that was my next plan -- to check the RAM. So I guess I have to just let the battery completely drain at this point.

Do a forced shut down and just hold the power button until it turns off? You probably have already tried it but...