The proposed answer was for someone who had replaced their display. There appears to be a more general situation where an early 2011 MBP can get to this state without a hardware change.
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=== Update (08/20/2017) ===
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I ended up agreeing that a repair, even at $440 was worth it to me to keep this machine running longer.
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I was prepared to do it myself, but was only able to find replacement main boards on eBay. I ended up coming across a post though that referred me to the good folks at KT Electronics in San Jose who although not able to simply repair my board for the lower advertised price were able to replace the board with a new one (it looks new to my visual inspection), and although it is only the 2GHz version ( previously I had the 2.2GHz) the machine is back to me and seems to be running fine again.
The proposed answer was for someone who had replaced their display. There appears to be a more general situation where an early 2011 MBP can get to this state without a hardware change.