I've done some additional testing and the slowdown is caused by the size of the files. Large files coppied into my share directory are causing the slowdown.

One thing I did do is install the Java runtime enviorment SE v1.4.1_01 because I need to be able to use MS java to access some of my corporate intranet with MS java (go figure). But as an experiment I tried using the earlier sun java that gets installed with a clean Limewire install and the problem still occurs.

any help is appreciated!