UpnP is not working for me. (I use windows 2008 R2 64 bit VPS).  I will try port forwarding.  Is there any specific directions to do this?  Everyone is talking about port forwarding, but I do not see a guide how to do it.

edit:  I think I got it to work by disabling UPnP on the bitcoin client settings, then adding bitcoin-qt.exe to the windows firewall.  I now have 18-20 connections.