re: OOB: If you have a broadband or better connection it will not affect your internet use. As far as LW is concerned, it would probably be rare but for some people there might be such situations it might affect LW's connection. In most cases OOB should be enabled, it should arguably help with search results. You might not notice any difference if it were enabled or disabled. Any OOB issues I guess would mostly affect dial-up or at a guess low-bandwidth satellite users.
Yes I agree, the earliest LW 5 should never have been released publicly, not as a standard version anyway, only as a beta. It was probably not until LW 5.2 or 5.3 that it was starting to shape up.
Sorry about the forum's email server. We have noticed the problem and it's an inconsistent problem. The server admin has not been able to pin-point the problem yet.