Ok you open LimeWire and connect to the gnutella network. Since your on a dsl/cable connection or higher I'm guessing your horizon is huge (you're connected to a lot of people). After you have a somewhat stable connection to ~4000+ hosts for one minute you logoff and close LimeWire. But within that one minute you got maybe 1000 queries. Say 500 of those were matches (query hits). Now we have people searching through their result list trying to find a host to download from. They come across yours and try to connect (they dont know you've logged off). So since their using the best gnutella client in the world LimeWire will try to connect to a default of 3 I believe. But since your firewall is blocking the connections and you dont have LimeWire operating they cant make a connection, well duh you say. Also when you make network connections your ip address is added to peoples discovered hosts so when they lose a connection they might try connecting to you. I'm pretty sure if you're getting hit by the same IP its just someone who really wants your file and they too stupid to try another host after the first couldnt download message. You shouldnt have anything to worry about since you have a firewall. I can believe its annoying. You shouldnt see any speed decrease. You would have to be hit with a lot of hosts (gnutella packets are small). I mean a lot of hosts. Well I hope that answers your questions.

Damn, I wonder were Adam Fisk has been?