I found the LW 5 extremely slow hashing files (LW 5 alpha/beta requires Java 6/1.6). That 'might' be a mac java issue since Java 6 has issues on mac. I ran the LW 5 alpha on a different OSX installation on same computer. For example, I at one point shared around 10,000 files & hashing took almost forever. Even less shared files took ages as you suggested & this included very small files being slow to hash.

LW 4 seems to hash much faster under Java 1.5 on a mac. Though yes, can still take a long time for lots of large files. Especially those over 1 GB in size.

At least the gnutella protocol has allowed larger sized files over very recent years. Instead of being limited to less than 1 GB. I am still unsure of the exact limit now.

Perhaps the LW proggies should look around more. Direct Connect for example which is a program I used to enjoy greatly. They've obviously taken a look at torrents & done their very limited version of working with it.

In LW 5 they have created a friends concept for sharing files ... I suspect more-so copied from the torrent similar concept.

In a very similar fashion to Azureus/Vuse's 3 level set up ... I hope LW introduces a 2-3 level user set up. LW 5 seems to be designed for those who know nothing. For those of us who have been long time users & 'are' interested in the small details, both from a viewing/analizing point & from a download/upload set up point, an optional simple to advanced set-up to give more options for the user would be good IMHO.