Better Vs. Good

So, I started prepping the dining room for paining. I spackled the big holes and started taping it. I realized that the wall are in pretty awful shape.

First, there is the water damage from the window problems. It is textured and bubbled out from the wall. Some of it has cracked off. It really should be fixed before painting. That would involve A LOT of work, probably taking down the wall and putting up new drywall and all that goes with that.

The other walls aren't much better. They are newish drywall, but it was not done very well. All the spackling in the world isn't going to fix it. They too should be fixed.

Then, there is the baseboards. Some are in pretty bad shape. They have chunks missing. They don't line up in the corners. There is no quarter round on the bottom and there should be, they don't reach the floor.

When I paint it, it won't look great. It will look better, most anything would, but it will be dark paint on crappy walls.

So the question is: Is it worth painting? Is better okay, or should we be waiting until we can make it good?

I just feel like I'm wasting my time by not fixing the problems which will have to be fixed some day, but I can't afford to fix now.