I never used emule much cos of all the fake shares and spycrap.
However I noticed on dc++ my speeeds are REALLY crap.
I'm using Bitspirit Torrent client atm, and it has uPNP support - so i got a new router a nice cheap smc one(from light edge - they sell to public).
At night i get 30-40kbs and right now 15.. so at least its something.
I use Amule(Linux Emule) and Bittorrent. I find that with A/Emule, it just depends on what you're downloading and how many available unused nodes who can supply and what THEIR bandwidth/congestion is like.
Trial and error port forwarding solved my problem......I didn't think that SlowKom could block ISDN ports, or shape ISDN ????. Anyways its resolved now for the time being