I'm following your discussion here with a certain kind of fascination. A very interesting topic with well weighed points of view.
It reminds me of a similar discussion right in the beginning after I became a member here, though the topic was not the assimilation of the torrent technique into the LW/ Gnutella clients.
I guess each of us has different philosophies and approaches. So, I'll reduce my comment to the point of freeloading, or leeching as you call it.
"Be fair and share" would be a logo everyone of us could agrees to.
But if sharing becomes compulsory or mandatory, can you still call it fair??
If your taste (i.e. the files you offer to share) do not fit the taste of others, would it be right to punish you (i.e. restrict you in your downloading capability due to a lack of uploading)??
Gnutella exists despite the freeloaders.
Merging LW with Torrents (or at least creating clients that support both ways) is the next natural step in the evolution of filesharing, and it won't be the last. Sooner or later those who are contra freeloaders (in both groups, gnutella users/ developers and torrent users/ developers) will see that despite the possibility only the minority will leech.
Further developments will go in the direction of supporting up and downloads to sites like rapidshare, megaupload and their likes. Or maybe the possibility to use one's file without downloading on your own computer (depending on the development of the internet speed).

Though just my 5-cent-worth

__________________

"Never Argue With An Idiot. They Will Drag You Down To Their Level, Then Beat You With Experience"

Most of the time, the networks are being flooded with fake files
I already expained how (search the forum)

So you need a dedicated source

I've only had 2 bad files from torrents in the 3 months

where as i've had quite a few on this network (even I get caught somtimes)

They haven't really done much to the bit torrent community yet
as the files that are rubbish is being deleted

Sgt

Hyper Kun

I use the tracker that make me able to get the file which doesn't mean having to pay for it. It just means antifreeloading rules.

FoolOfTheHill

This ratio thing does not mean that every download you get from a tracker has to get a 1/1 ratio. It just means that all the torrents you got through that tracker need a 1/1 ratio (e.g. you got 5 fles 800 MB from it you give 1-2 files 800 MB back since 3 were unpopular so very few would download them)

BTW it's great getting this many views on the subject. Well I still believe that it will be a bad idea. I think it's working quite well the way it is done now (i.e people sharing the torrents worth sharing on the Gnutella network)