Sometimes a pause / resume will help if it's not actually the server's load that's the issue. (I've seen the exact same thing from frickin Microsoft servers, it wasn't the load, it was the darned ISP or the route taken that was the issue).
Another thing that would sometimes magically work was *cough, cough* firing up a tab for speedtest.net and running a download speed test.
This could all just be me, however, personally I think there was something to it.
You could also try using Knossos, that's almost at v1.0 release now (right around the corner if nothing goes wrong).
