Well the 7 day limit is default, but most people change it. Mine is set to 999 days & you should do something similar or change it to 9999 days.

Where is the location of your download folder? If it is in your prefs folder then that's silly. And if it's within your program folder then that's also silly, in case you should upgrade & reinstall over it.

I didn't know you'd suffer this issue because it's the 1st time I've heard of it. Everybody's system is set up differently. Some put their downloads into their program folder & then are surprised when they upgrade LW that their downloads are gone. I mean the default location is outside of this folder so ...

BTW have a look at all the Stickies in OSX lw section. Have a look here at the link for utility that backs up ... http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showthread.php?t=36378