Bleibold,
I contacted VMware for help regarding my question and the tech said that you can move the database and then install the latest VMware. A couple of things to note, he said that I needed to install the same sql native client for the dsn that will be on the new machines sql server. So we are going from sql 2005, with a native client of 9, to sql 2008 with a native client of 10. I will install native client 10 on the old box before I move the DB to the new server. Also after you move the database you can change the dsn on the old box and point it towards the new server and vcenter should work fine. This is a good check to make sure the database moved and there are no problems. After that you can turn off that machine and install vcenter fresh. The adam does have the security permissions but I did read that vcenter backs those up to a certain table and can restore them if necessary although I'm not sure if they would be restored by just moving the db? Not sure about the licensing part either.
If your environment has view be sure to upgrade those components as well because they are not compatible with vcenter 5.5 if they are below version 5.2.