Whilst I do not recommend doing this for long, did you try turning your software firewalls off to see if that made a difference? There are different gnutella.net files around If LW 4 Will Not Connect (click on the blue link) & I supplied another here: http://www.gnutellaforums.com/343558-post10.html

But as Peerless suggested, Phex is fantastic. And the BearShare Beta is the best of Bearshare.