I gotta say.. I've used VLC for a while, and I like it... but ... I recently found BSplayer, and that sucker is excellent! I especially like that you can increase and decrease playback speeds. It is now my media player of choice.
well...we got over 250 seeds active...it shouldnt be that slow. Have you made sure your router(if using one) is setup properly for maximum bittorrent speed? I posted a link in the intial release thread about router config...check it out and see if it will help you.