I understand your frustration, but I don't think Limewire is a scam. It has worked flawlessly for me, for over a year and a half. There are several reasons that people have problems. Your ISP can have a huge impact on P2P useage. The problem with this is that they won't tell you directly and they might not tell you at all. Other reasons are Firewall issues, modem/routers that might also have a NAT firewall that has to be configured and several more things I'm sure, but If there is anything that we can help you with, please let us know.
Also you say, "so many people". What you see here in this forum is a minute (Adjective) sum compared to the millions that are using Limewire.
