I row in with Azureus. I've tried a few and I find its the most reliable with acceptable speeds and a lot of useful features.

Like you I'm standalone without a firewall (use SpyBot and AdAware to keep your system clean) and have 1meg ADSL which can give me speeds up to 120ks - average is around 80.

get a firewall, get something like Sygate (even the free one)
PS I used to be paranoid but now I know they are out to get me!!!!