I'd only like to give you an answer for the following part of the question:
So my question is, for native German speakers does this word have any ... imagery or metaphors associated with it?
If I understand this part of the question correctly, you want to know if native speakers living today even notice that the verb "baden" is a part of the verb "ausbaden".
I can only know about myself, but I think the answer is "no" for nearly every native speaker.
German native speakers normally don't even notice that the verb "baden" is a part of the verb "ausbaden".
Most native speakers don't know the etymology of the separable verb, so they don't know the connection between the two verbs.
The same is true for many (but not all) other separable verbs.