Trackpad (+ spotlight) semi-unresponsive, Mavericks on a 2010 MBP

Ever since I upgraded my 2010 Macbook Pro from Mountain Lion to Mavericks, an issue has been occuring at seemingly random moments. Without warning, my trackpad will no longer allow me to click or use gestures, although moving the cursor around is still possible. Also, both Spotlight and the application switcher (cmd+tab) stop appearing, although the latter does function (but without any graphical feedback).

I've read some articles about a similar issue with the new rMBP's, so this might be related. Apple does seem to explicitly limit their acknowledgement of the bug to those new rMBP models, however. (related question)

The fact that Spotlight and the application switcher also die on me seem to indicate that it's a software problem. Rebooting my Mac helps without fail, but is quite inconvenient at times..

Is there a fix / solution / more elaborate diagnose available? Am I the only one or is this more widespread amongst the older generations of the MBP?

If you physically cannot hear/feel the bottom of the trackpad actually click the switches on the right and/or left of the trackpad, then this is probably a hardware issue that only coincidentally occurred with the software update. I have experienced a large number of older MacBooks with failure-to-click issues that are the result of a bulging battery pushing on the back of the trackpad assembly.

A short-to-medium term solution is to use the "System Preferences" -> "Trackpad" controls to turn on "tap-to-click", but eventually the battery will need replacing. This will have the added benefit of giving you a longer time-between-needing-recharging compared to your four year old battery.