While I agree entirely with your sentiments about file sharing, it does seem a bit unfair that I can give direct access to my files to specific friends but they get no preferential treatment. It is galling to see a friend downloading at 1kbps when others are getting much higher speeds. I had hoped that connecting direct would have meant that the friend would have enjoyed a faster rate than the other 19 people I allow to download at any time.
I am not trying to create a small nucleus of priviledge and I do only have 1500 files to share but I would like to play favourites now and again as a favour to a few specific people.