Please allow me to take this a little further.
While LimeWire was running, I was trying to download an mpg video file to share. Top speed was between .5kb and 25kb per second. I allow 5 uploads sharing 38 kb bandwidth.
The video was taking forever to download, so I cut off all the file sharers, and quit LimeWire.

The video then increased in speed to an average of 200kb per second.

Do you think that is an acceptable performance hit?

I had to quit the program to be able to effectively download a file I wanted to have and share.
Maybe I am wrong, but I have a problem with that. It negates the purpose of the program, in my mind.

Please, if you can make sense of it for me and the others having problems, I would welcome your views.