Why is the image quality of the camera suddenly MUCH worse and the flash stopped working?

first of all, I didn't drop my BB Torch 9810 (well, I did, but not recently, and it didn't have any problems at all after that, luckily).
So - I didn't drop it and still it suddenly takes pictures that are pretty horrible in quality (I know they weren't really great from the start, but that's not what I bought the BB for). Still, the quality deteriorated, in any scene mode.
And the flash stopped working. It also doesn't work in any of the other applications (tried briefly with a flashlight app which worked before but didn't ever use it for long for fear of damaging the flash...)
So - no flash and bad image quality.

Only thing I did recently was a backup and synchronisation.

Do I have to resign myself to the fact that it's just plain broken?

Any ideas on what I could try are greatly appreciated!

Gently press on it with a pencil eraser. Next step, load a fresh OS.