Sounds bad. Mucho memory and free hard disk space are good hardware fixes for lots of problems. Did you try the usual software fixes? uninstalling limewire, restarting computer in "safe boot" (starting up holding down the shift key), then running Disk Utility to repair permissions, restarting and reinstalling? If you're lucky that might work.

Re the Why? 10.2.4 seems pretty good, but both the Java that Limewire is based on and Limewire are currently being revised. Many of us are waiting for the results--maybe soon. If you search for poster "Clueless," you'll find Acquisition works much better for him.