Marc - I think it's a cool project. The first thing I would do after cleaning the plane thoroughly would be to lap the whole bottom of the plane. You can put PSA paper on a good flat surface like a wing of your table saw or some corian or marble, granite, whatever so long as it's flat, then just push the plane along until you have all bright steel showing. Then take it through to successive grits up to 320 or 400. When you have a good flat, lapped surface to begin with, the rest will follow. You can lap the blade as well and other parts if they need it.
I think this is a good project to learn how to really tune a plane.
Here's a video about doing the things I mentioned:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/2013/09/26/handplane-tune-up-tips
I'll bet that after you work on that plane it will come back to life.
If you want to fill that divot in the base, take it to a welder and they can braze it - some have special stuff to tig weld as well.
It's small enough that it wouldn't take too much heat, and if there is any warping at all which I doubt there would be, it will come out when lapped.
Go through fixing that all up and you will learn a lot about planes and it will become a special friend.
Mark