1998 Prius - summary of turtle of death light going up hills!

I post here the summary of my problem with turtle light on hills on Mk 1 1998 prius from the Yahoo Mk 1 discussion group. Buyer beware! Re the turtle of death on hills, I have now removed and cleaned the MAF sensor (suggested as problem), so its clean as a whistle, and then came to my land, and yes you guessed it, I still could only get up the hill at 20 km an hour (walking car from side to side!). Now Debbie has previously said:

'My advice is not great having owned one, there are very few that are "OK" They are like a poker machine. You'll just keep feeding money into it and it will end up costing you MUCH more than a regular car....sorry The MK1 is SO MUCH DIFFERENT TO THE MORE recent models. I wish that people would read up on these little horrors B4 buying one, I did not and had a lemon like MANY MANY others.'

Now I did my online research and couldnt FIND anything warning about the 1998 prius not being able to go up hills. So buyer beware!
Julian has said:

'It's not the size of the hill, it's the steepness. I had to climb a ~500m high hill with quite steep grades and mine in std form used to get a turtle about 2/3rds of the way up. With turbo, it used to stay at full HV battery over the same grades! For anyone reading this, An NHW10 IS NOW NOT A GOOD BUY!!'

and my experience agrees with this. It can climb fine on a gentle gradient but not on a steep dirt road. How much did it cost to turbocharge your prius and what sort of petrol consumption does it get now? I can only say that I wish I had been warned about this. Could it be a problem with the vehicle drive system? Is it worth taking it into Toyota in Sydney? Otherwise turbocharging or selling it are my only options?
Cheers Haydn