That number is set automatically to 3 for leafs to help the network and is no longer a user preference. The automatic requery has also been eliminated. These are two of many changes to make gnutella more efficient and will take a while for users to upgrade and see the new benefits to all. I think and hope. btw, 2.9.7 should be out shortly and I think it uses the new java 1.4.1 on OSX.