site resurection not possible?

Ive volunteered to run a WP site since 2009. salvamento dot org.
Over 500 posts bilingual posts using qtranslate, image database managed by nextgen. some posts using flickr manager(old not updated) theme Mandigo. (very old not updated).

I am starting to realize that over the long haul, one should probably keep plugins to a minimum because once dependent on them, and the support is removed, their goes the site.

So here are some problems I am having and need to get through to get my site back in order.

Downgrade from multisite to single.
I don’t know why I went multisite in the firstplace because facebook soon destroyed it. I have followed this tutorial. https://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/how-to-uninstall-wordpress-multisite/

Problem is that nexgen is tied into some posts on sites within the network. If I delete the sites, I guess nexgen folders with said photos will be hanging on my server without links?

I go into mysql database, and I see numerous redundant tables of plugins with numbers in front of them. Not sure if that is tied to multisite.

Migrate from qtranslate to WPML. over 500 blog entries are span/english.
Pages are in Span/Eng/Norwegian.
they have great support so may be able to troubleshoot this by myself. I want to get multisite to single first.
I tried MQtranslate which was excellent! but conflicted with Nexgen. I am not sure how WPML will work.

should I start with a clean install?
If I do, how do I save my nexgen and qtranslate data to the new install?

Also, I do not have adimistrator privs. I get the
You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page. pop up when I want to config plugins.
So I go into mysql, change it to administrator, and there is no place for USER level noted to change the config.

I’m dropping mandigo theme and doing twenty 14.

Any suggestions?
anybody willing to directly help us get this solved will get credit in the footer and a link to their site.