Here are some results after trying the VPN method.
I live in Mexico, which is south of the USA.
And while using a download manager (IDM) with 8 threads I get download speeds from LP between 1 and 5 MB/s.
Last year I remember getting speeds up to 12 MB/s (just saying).
Paid for a VPN service and connected to a German server.
Here is a quick speed test while connected to that server from Germany:
So those are pretty good results. Then I went to the LP site and my account got blocked for "unusual activity" lol
Proceeded to reset my password and downloaded one of the latest scenes and well the speed was unsurprisingly slow.
Although it was better than connected directly from Mexico.
The speed that LP was offering to a German server, which geographically, is right next to Czech Republic, was anywhere from 600 KB/s to 3 MB/s
I also tried the IDM but it appears that IDM doesn't pick up the VPN tunnel.
And I don't know how to set it up to use the VPN connection.
Anyways, in conclusion the speed gain is not better than just using a download manager and thus not worth paying for the VPN.