I am having the same problems. I have applied your suggestions and my speed has gone up from 2 to approx 5. This only applied to video, audio is normally pretty fast.

A. Did you configure your firewall so it allows LW full access
yes
B. Do this test: Bug Report instructions & sample image Is the result True/False?
false

C. Can you give us a total desciption of your set up:
1. OS version? Windows XP Home
2. What firewalls you have? Windows Firewall
3. Modem & router brand name & model numbers?
Motorola SB5100 / D-Link DI-524
4. Where are you trying to connect from (home, school, work, etc.)? Home
5. What version of Limewire (LW) & Java do you have? LW 4.9.28 / Java 1.5.0_06
6. Who is your isp provider ? Rogers Yahoo High speed connection
7. Are you sharing the connection with other computers or p2p sharing programs? If yes, please give details of set up. connection is shared between laptop & desktop computers. Both are rarely on at the same time. LW is installed on the laptop.

D. Let's try an experiment, download a magnet link file from here: http://www.magnetmix.com/video.shtml Tell us what happens & what speeds you get. starts out at 5-9 goes down to 0 and hovers around 2

E. See the following link & follow “ALL” the off-shoot links to find hints & extra skills to help: To continue files downlding (click on link)

* Be aware, you can normally only downld as fast as the sources you're downlding from will allow; ie: how many & how much bandwidth they have available for you. Obviously the more the sources the better. I am aware

Right-click on the top of the column bar on the downld window & choose to show vendor/version. So take a closer look at the people you're downlding from. Are the slow ones LimeWire (LW) or another such as Shareaza (RAZA) or anotherWindows firewall is enabled doesn't seem to matter