I think I can answer some of your questions:

3. The "Connections" tab is disabled by default but can be re-enabled in the Options.

4. The reason they disabled the Connections screen is because it's not accurate, and was causing a lot of confusion re Hosts vs Horizon-size. When you see "5 Hosts" listed at the bottom, that *is* accurate -- you're directly exchanging Gnutella traffic with 5 other computers. What you're accustomed to seeing as "3K Hosts" is actually the Horizon, i.e. the estimated total number of accessible computers as self-reported per Host. I guess the programmers at Limewire have learned that this Horizon estimate has little correlation with the likely success of searching so they removed it from the default setup (by disabling the Connections screen).

re LimeWire 2.0, they're still working the bugs out of the UltraPeer technology! My experience was that I had terrible searching, and few uploaders, while I was still considered a Leaf (a client to an Ultrapeer). After about 3 or 4 days on-line, I was finally promoted to an UltraPeer and now I get great results for both up/down-loads. If you have a 24.7 connection (and PC), just stay on-line 'til you're promoted!
- Tony