Hi Hill
As you know, dl speeds are limited by the slowest host in the chain--look at the LW Help Menu for tips on improving the odds of a downloads. This is the easiest way.

If you are interested in fiddling more, though, here are some suggestions:

Find a "reference." Try downloading a file you know is available from many hosts. Wait a couple of minutes for the results to stabilize, then download and watch the speeds. They'll vary depending on the sources used, but will give you a sense of what you should expect.

Here are some more things I do to optimize my setup.

Run software update to check out the latest fixes from Apple (watch their discussions for problems, though), start up in Safe Boot mode (hold down the shift key after the start-up chime: this runs the OSX disk maintenance), and Repair Permissions using the Disk Utility in the Utilities folder.

OSX has a built-in firewall (System Preferences->Sharing->Firewall) which is turned on by default. If you click on the new button, you can choose the setting called "Gnutella/Limewire (6346)".

Re any other firewalls, the Network Administrator at your workplace would be the one to ask about firewalls and getting access to the Gnutella Network on port 6346. I'd guess they'd frown on such a request, though.

Hope that helps for starts.