You're going to have to bite the bullet. The fact of the matter is that the later SDKs depend on features that are only available in 10.6 and not 10.5.
It's not so simple to upgrade your system. Not like everyone has a couple grand laying around all the time. Plus when your married, it's hard to justify spending 2k on a new computer when your current one works just fine for everything except deploying webapps as iphone apps.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.