I can't answer all of your questions - but let's start with a few infos.
the "round" formfactor of the battery tells me that there are "18650" cells inside the battery - you can use something like the "SANYO 18650 3.6V 2.6Ah/2600mAh Cell" for that, but they are expensive.
you could build a 5.2Ah (6 cell) or 7.8Ah (9 cell) battery with them.
the "conspiracy theory" about the charging counter came up on many devices, mostly MacBooks have those funny problems ;-)
in fact, those dead batteries are not ok, i disassembled a few MacBook batteries and tested the li-po cells - there was always one cell that had a problem while the others were fine!
since those batteries are only using simple charging electronics - they orienting the whole wharging process on the weakest link. they don't have real balancer (as used in the R/C scene) - so if one cell is bad - the whole pack is "dead" - replacing the bad cell with a known good one will revive those batteries (thats why many "freaks" are buying dead MacBook batteries on ebay - buy 6 dead ones for 10 bucks or less and sell 5 working ones for togehter ~250$)
i think you won't need the exact video for your battery - here's one that shows the changing process in common: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtqRvAu71Gw|CLICK here]