No, you don't need it for running Limewire (The FAQ on the Limewire page says more about FaxSTF). It's fax software that is sometimes bundled on the Mac.

Sorry I couldn't help more. Darn! No easy solution! You've already tried uninstalling Limewire and reinstalling from a freshly downloaded copy that you were sure was right for your set-up, right? And now you know it's not the more usual memory allocation or a software conflict with FaxSTF.

What next? Something with your system set-up or computer, I guess. Easiest way to see this if you can use a similar set-up on a friend's computer. If this isn't an option, in Limewire itself, I'd try a new search, then once the numbers changed, try resizing the results window by dragging the separator and or clicking on the zoom box to force the window to redraw. No change? I'd try a restart; then try Limewire running all alone. If that didn't work, I'd look for an extension conflict by using the control panel Extensions Manager to turn off as many unnecessary extensions as I could. This will take a while to test

Limewire, like other programs, needs Java to run and search, so that doesn't seem to be the problem, but reinstalling Java would eliminate it as the culprit (here's the link http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75097).

If you've tried all this, I hope someone else can help you. Do post back with results to help others.