Same as with torrent sites. I find other people add new copies of old episodes, converted by themselves. 'Sometimes' the conversion is an improvement in quality.
Sometimes they do it because the numbers of people with the older versions are not sharing them in numbers any more. It's hard to say why they do it on Gnutella. On that example topic, I wish people would start converting files at higher quality. More & more people have larger Hard disk drives nowadays, faster internet services. So a file 640 x 480 (or larger) is a lot better than one at 480 x 320 or 320 x 240 pixel dimensions, etc. lol which have arguably poor quality. VCD's are an 'old' technology, most people use DVD's nowadays. We don't need videos converted to VCD size. TV screens are generally larger nowadays too in the general population of TV screens. A reconverted VCD size video looks terrible on a large TV screen (be it burnt as vcd or dvd or simply watched via computer connection to large screen).