faster downloads?

[ursula]

To try to make the point a little stronger with another 'pipe' analogy...

If you do take the $tep$ to increase your bandwidth/transfer capacity, than WHY immediately configure your transfers to 'consume' or exceed your new expen$ive connection ?

or...

If you buy a 'bigger pipe' and then proceed to fill to capacity that new big pipe by stuffing it full of many small pipes, WHAT do you or any others gain ?

Unless you have some passion for sharing and D/Ling the maximum number of files possible at any one time (A numbers freak !!!), it makes far more sense to use your greater capacity to increase the 'rate of transfer' per file and enhance the 'headroom' that all systems require to operate 'efficiently'. Running anything at the MAX is a certain way to decrease performance.

If you have a 'small pipe', do as little as possible as quickly as possible.

As you manage to get bigger and bigger 'pipes', increase your 'slots load' by perhaps ¼ for every doubling of overall capacity (Or, by a ½, maximum).
Do not just think that, because you have more bandwidth, you can automatically increase slot allotments. That type of thinking has resulted in a very great overall slow-down of the Gnutella Network.

Perhaps it is better to think in terms of one important factor as a goal...
Completion speed in time...

The less 'time' required to complete a transfer the fewer possibilities that the transfer will fail... And, the less resources required of the entire network.
And, you move on to the next thing you want !