I am no expert when it comes to altering the Gnutella network. But as far as I understand, changing the port number that listnens for other hosts can create a new extension of the network. For instance, if I chose to use port 6357 (this is an example- I don't know if this is a viable option), I can find you if you are using that port to listen to the network as well. Problems with this include:

a) no one else may be using that port, so you would not find anyone to connect to,
b) this port may already be used for something else. Like I said, I don't know much about what ports are used for what services, how many ports there are, etc. I basically know that using port 21 to host an ftp server works.
c) the autoconnect hosts give you the addresses to hosts who are using the standard port # (or numbers), so there would need to be a new router set up for this to be practical.

I do not know what Aim uses. In fact, I am not sure what you are referring to. America Online Instant Messenger, Aimster? Please clarify this or correct my ignorance.

The main thing that clogs the Gnutella network are pings and pongs sent between users when searching for files. When it comes time to actually download a file, LW makes an http (hyper text transfer protocol) connection directly to the host. So, the only thing clogging the network are the searches, pushes, queries, pings, and pongs, etc. If we were to try a new number (I mean more than just a few people), we might reduce the traffic. It's like adding more lanes to a freeway. The standard for Gnutella is 6346. But many people have already started using other port numbers.

So to answer your question, Kirby, I am not really sure. But I do know that there are other ports for Gnutella above 6346, and that you can use them.