Thanks for your input, ram's definately not the issue .. if i exit all programs which frees up about 80MB the aforementioned behavior is still present.
I'm looking at the statistics page and my upstream is at 18.377 avg, 22.050 curent. I've confirmed (today) through using KaZaA my upload is in excess of 45KB/s.
Typical CPU load while uploading & downloading (javaw.exe) 10-25% +/- 5%. I have (and always have) disabled ultrapeer. CPU load isn't a factor either for this behavior.

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Appears I got my answer while typing this reply. What are the odds?