has anyone else had the experience of doing searches and then getting (always) 19k files labelled !-! coming up whatever is searched for (sometimes with more than one copy) - and - always listed at only 3 stars

Yes... I had a spate of those last week... I added !-! to my list of keyword filters and have seen no more.... am sure it is a matter of time before they show up in some other form.

Yes, almost in every search. Mines were all from the same server 66.250.52.45 I have blocked (filtered) this server in host filters and they have, for the moment, dissapeared.