Do you know if your sidecar files (.xmp) are saved with the photos or just on the library? If they are saved with the photo files, you might do better to just import the folders into your new setup, them import them into LR. If not, I'm not sure how best for you to proceed.

"In the days of slide film you got what you took"

Whoa there! In the days of film and slides, I spent huge amounts of time in the darkroom dodging, burning, masking, and filtering to achieve what I can do with software in just a few minutes. Either way, it took thought and vision and reflected my vision of what I wanted the viewer to see in the photo I made.

Much like the old Disney short about the four artists who were assigned to paint the same tree. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Dg8w6gk4cE

Define perfect, then go for it. Perfection is for such things as science and engineering. Photography, in most of its forms, is an art. It is what you make of it. As such, you get to decide what is "perfect"; it is judged against your standards and not a set of scientific tables or the bureau of weights and measures. It is admired and hated by people of greatly varying tastes, some of which still think that the lighting and posing of the golden years of Hollywood are still the pinnacle of the art. Others despise it. You can conform to someone else's taste or you can set your own standards. That is completely your choice.

Consider taking it into LR and using the Dehaze adjustment. Might help. There are a hundred ways to skin this cat in either PS or LR. Good chance here to play with some of them.

Cracked Rock, waaaay out in West Texas. Clouds? What clouds? We ain't got no stinking clouds! September 2014

Here is a parent and two children. Each year in Texas, those in bluebonnet country have to take to the meadows and hills to get family pix. I went with my daughter and we set up to take the bluebonnet pictures of my grands and it became a wrestling match. Here, my daughter is trying to get photos of her middle child while her oldest was riding her shoulders. The youngest was all over me as I wrestled to make this shot. I'm just glad it was a fun outing and not a paying client!

Just my humble opinion, but if you aren't shooting action shots and you're quite happy with the images you get with the lens, I would just live with the slow autofocus. Save a little money and relish the experience of seeing your AF search for the right focus. Just a thought.

If you choose to get a different body but remain with Nikon, be sure to consider that if your choice is a DX, your wide angle lens will have a narrower field of view than with the D800. You might need to obtain a wide-angle lens specifically spec-ed for a DX camera.

I second jaymatt's suggestion and add this: save the big expenditures until you've done some learning via classes and/or workshops. Learn all the essential photography skills before sinking a wad of cash into a top-line digital camera with pro glass. If you get the gear first, you might get buyer's remorse when you see mediocre images coming out of them. Get your skills up, then get your gear up.

If you don't mind one more suggestion, here goes. A quick and relatively easy way to get it done is to shoot RAW and process with Nik Silver Effex Pro (free from Google). There's lots of room for manipulation, but also a plethora (did I just use that word?) of presets you can pick from and make adjustments from. I've used it plenty of times and it can be a real time saver without compromising on quality. I hope this helps.

If you're planning to stay with Nikon, I would recommend stepping up the glass first. If, however, you're looking to move to another brand, I would suggest, after thorough research and after saving your nickels and dimes, getting an intermediate-level model in that brand and a decent (not top-quality) go-to zoom lens to go with it. Either way, glass should take a higher priority, as it will have greater effect on the quality of your images. More than anything, however, you will have the greatest influence on quality. You should seriously make education your next investment before you start pouring large bucks into your gear arsenal.

I wouldn't worry too much about learning all the functions of your camera. Instead, figure out what you want to do with your camera and learn how best to do it on your camera. I don't know half of what my camera does, mostly because I don't really feel much need to do more. Think of what folks like Ansel Adams had to work with and understand that the features on your camera won't make you any better. Instead, learn more about how to handle light, composition, perspectives, etc. THAT will make you a better photographer, and you won't need any cool, whizbang features to get there. First and foremost, WRT your camera and its features, learn to use your manual mode. While mastering that, be aggressively mastering the artistic aspects of photography. Once you've done that, you'll probably find that you don't have time to mess with that other stuff. You'll be too busy taking great photos.

Short answer: I'm not familiar with either, but here are some things to look for. First, what is the smallest aperture for each lens? Also, is the smallest aperture constant throughout the zoom range, or does it change with focal length? If so, what does it change to? Second, understand that you will lose light with a teleconverter. The 2x converter will dock you two stops of aperture. If the lens is already a relatively slow aperture, coupling it with a converter that takes away another two stops might make what you want to do with it just too hard to do. I sincerely hope you can recover nicely from your medical problems and run out of need for your pain meds, and soon!

I use mine as a backup. When I go somewhere with the purpose of taking photos all day, the last thing I need is to arrive and find that my camera has ceased to function for some reason. If I pull out my most recent mainstay, I'll have a decent camera that I'm still reasonably familiar with and that takes all my glass. No sweat, just missing some of the newer bells and whistles, maybe a little less pixel density. I upgraded in September '15 to a D810, but I always take my D90 with me just in case. It's still the camera that's gotten me some of my best images.