Late 2011 MBP *STILL* slow after SSD Upgrade + Yosemite

I've been using a Late 2011 (MacbookPro 8.1) for the past 3 years. Had the standard drive and 4GB memory. In October 2014 the HDD drive gave out. I replaced it with the OWC 240GB SSD Electra. It moved EXTREMELY SLOW and wouldn't even load Yosemite. The tech I went to replaced it with a 240GB Kingston drive. Worked better but STILL extremely slow.

Boot up times are in excess of 3 minutes.

There is absolutely NOTHING on the laptop now. I wiped everything off when the HDD went down.

Thought it was Snow Lepord, installed Yosemite and it takes at least 45 seconds to 1 full minute before a program opens.

It's absolutely unusable at this point. I am planning on upgrading the memory to 16GB but is that really the issue here? I'd hate to spend more money to still own a paperweight at this point.

Anyone else have any issues with serious lag?

Message was edited by: Kay Gibbz ** Looking at my activity monitor System: 97.61% User: 3.29% I have no idea why that's so high. Any suggestions?