From my experiance with the srw stuff it's not that the system is incapable of serving that many connections it's just that the software is absolutely shit.the srw2048 is not something you could replace with an eepc or simliar it's a layer 2 48 port switch that is fairly cheap (to be honest i would recommend the hp 1810 or cisco sr300 these days and avoid the srw switches but based on the branding this has been around for a while.)
and i guess they still have the horrendous IE only ui (btw you can actually get a serial connection that is less fail on the switches http://www.crc.id.au/real- console-on-linksys-srw2024-switch/
There is a commandline interface on the srw switches, but it's a bit convoluted to get to. But yes, the management software is awful, and being constrained to IE is a limitation I'd rather do without (especially as it doesn't actually work anyway). Firefox doesn't work, but I think that's nothing to do with concurrent connections. I use the 1810G series switches these days, although they don't support 802.1x which is a bit of a pain. James