I, too, use OS9.2 and the pro version of LimeWire.

Yes, there used to be a limit but now it's seems to be unlimited.

However, my experience is that if I'm trying to browse someone who has a lot of files (more than a few thousand), it may or may not take a while.

Sometimes, "a while" can be 5 minutes or longer. At other times, only some of the person's files will show up and occasionally none of them. I am referring to hosts that I frequently encounter who have the files I want so I know what they have.

So, that's a mystery to me (why only some show up, I mean.)

Not sure I would call "freezing" the correct term even though it "seems" like that when nothing appears to be happening.

Error messages don't just go away except that you can configure options to discard those "internal message" windows.

Rebuild your desktop and quadruple the memory allocated to Limewire.