We simply moved the LimeWire 1.6d beta from beta to our official release, so yes, it is the same.

In terms of the connection bug, we are currently looking into it. It appears to be related to the new JRE, but we are not sure what is causing it at this point. The vast majority of users are still able to connect.

This is definitely one of our highest priority issues, however, so we should have it solved quite shortly.