So here comes the user feedback
I installed Shareaza_2.5.0.1_Win32_Debug_r8309_2009-11-10.exe and started it.
At first sight, it looked the same as before. But when asking the Windows task manager about Shareaza, it is different! Task mgr says: Application not responding (as before), process not doing any I/O (as before), *BUT* this time it consumes 0% CPU time, not 99% as it did before. Strange, what reason could there be to get stuck ?? It can't be the network, because I'm posting this while Shareaza is running (if I may say so for a program not using the CPU).