I've been thinking about your grief and have read a number of your posts and have had an idea.
You might think it crazy, but will only cost you about $29 US (I know you said you were in Canada, just trying to help).
Buy a Snow Leopard 10.6 and instal that.
None of your OS9 applications will work in Lion anyway - there's no Rosetta support, whereas there is in Snow Leopard.
At least you'll have a disk in your hand: I was astonished to read that Lion does not come on a disk but has to be dowloaded (yes I know there is masses of support out there to make a Lion-bootable disk, but my idea negates that).
From what I've read, Snow Leopard is easier than Lion. To me, it's not much different to Tiger from which I upgraded; just cosmetic stuff and faster processing, maybe.
Also, if all you're doing is some emails, word processing and the occasional internet, you don't need Lion anyway. (I can only presume that you bought a new Mac which had Lion pre-installed?)
Anyway, me, I'd go for it. Hope that helps.
Here's the link to the US Apple Store
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A?mco=MTc1MTI2NzAOther retailers are available. I bought mine off Amazon.
Another thought: with your dial-up connection you're unlikely to be unable to download another Lion operating system should you need to. (to make a bootable back-up disc or something like that.)
