I now know that
RI=Remote Interested
RC=Remote Choking
LI=Local Interested
LC=Local Choking

Now that I know the buzzwords, I could use an explanation of what these actually mean when they are RED and GREEN

What is their affect on a download?

Thanks...

bump

If you hover over the peer status the tooltip with the explanation of what you pointed out will appear. Example: Remote Interested, Local not choking. This is green+green.
Bittorrent is much like a polite conversation protocol: "I see you have this, I'd like to have some of this, please. I can indeed have it? Thanks" - this phrase encompasses: piece availability, local interested, remote not choking, piece confirmation.

These statuses have little relevance unless you want to debug things or control transfers using very crude manual methods.