Aw3: I think his gripe is that the rate shown is for the current download session, not the overall transfer rate.
Towelie: the problem with that is the waiting time.
If we take it into account, the average transfer rate becomes miniscule. It might have been weeks since you downloaded something from that client.
If we don't, then the same complaint stands; we'd have to add a label:
waiting time excluded, or something like that. And then you would want to know the average waiting time.

IMO what might be more interesting is the peak average transfer rate. I'd be more interested in, say, whether the client in question uploads at 3KB/s or 8KB/s (that's my max download speed

but you get the drift). Then I'd know that this client is capable to transferring to me at high speed.