ok, I understand what your saying, but:

if the average speed is 2/3kbps, then what could possibly increase the flow to 20/25 so quickly, and especially if there is no sign of other people turning up (logging on) to help with the download?
It would suggest either that something usually preventing high speeds is being discounted or disabled temporarily (and I'm not accusing anyone of tricks, just assuming that the system has certain tasks to overcome), or that the speed indicator isn't accurate; Either way it is odd.

Could it be caused by bad configuration from inexperienced users? I know from my (steep) learning curve that limewire takes a bit of time to set up at first, and a lot of people don't understand what all the parameters mean.. Many people looking at P2P are new to the internet/computing. Could I suggest more info in the PREFERENCES to enable people to make a better informed set up? I imagine this will help all users in the long run, though I am no techie..

In respect to the other question, when I said "forgotten" I didn't mean "awaiting sources" or "queued", I meant that I can do a fresh search and find a file with exactly the same title, but it hasn't been picked up as available by my computer, even though I have free slots. Is this to do with the queing system?

Thanks again