Hi bella and blackbird
I laughed when I noticed that the iTunes upgrade restricted sharing through the iTunes app to the local network (sounds like Apple's making a token gesture to keep the RIAA appeased), but don't see that should affect the sharing of iTunes folders through other apps like LW--I just checked, and the permisssions on the folders look the same as before.
As Blackbird says, connections are quite dynamic--perhaps volatile is a better description. If you are interested in more, see osu_uma's thread in the Beta forum on
ultrapeer connections
Cheers