I'm not sure if I'm having your exact problem, but I've had the connection time out a few times while trying to post replies to topics. I only had to refresh to get it to work agian.
No, I don't think it's aol. When it is, it is generally with registration. What's odd is that it will happen with certain threads and not with others. Sometimes, I want to respond and just can't. I switch to another thread and it's fine.