Have you tried Tip: Purge the Downloads Queue! as this will help freshen up the program when you start it. Hopefully that will give you better option at changing listening or/& connection port. You could try one between 49152 - 65535 (a good one to try for some people is 64049.)

I generally had to add more ram to LW depending on how many shares & incomplete files I had. After purging, I would reduce it again. To add ram if needed & only if you have any to safely spare, select the program, command (apple key) and i keys to get information. In the window that appears you will see an option for ram allocation (memory.)

You are finding it is connecting sometimes, and sometimes not? How about if it doesn't connect, you quit, then restart, reconnect. I know when I used dial up with an early version of LW it could take considerable time to connect sometimes. And for some reason, opening my browser seemed to help lol. Not sure why. But give it plenty of time to try to connect.

I presume you did try deleting your LW prefs folder called .limewire whilst LW was closed?