D-Link DIR-655 :: Download Speed Fine But Upload Speed Is Way Slow?

I live in the tampa bay area, I have bright house (BHN) as my service provider, which provides a Road Runner Lightning (40/5) package.  I previously used BHN's top tier (20/2) back in July (and prior) with no problems.

After converting to Lightning in August of this year (2010).  Of course, BHN (and every other provider) wants to force a modem/router down your throat, so I had them bridge it (in short, turn it into a dummy modem with no routing). I had an SMC branded modem gateway at the time.  I work from home 2 days a week (so I can spend more time with my kids during morning, lunch, right after work) and this requires me to use QoS to ensure my VOIP work calls don't get dropped, if the family is watching youtube videos or watching netflex. 

My network was as follows SMC Modem >WAN IP>>WAN Port>>D-link DIR-655>>Switch Ports>PC1, PC2, PC3

Everything seemed fine (from a usability stand point) till about 2 weeks ago when my upload speed seemed to grind to halt.  Normally I was able to upload about 200-300K per second, and I noticed this dropped to about 45K per second during a drop box upload.   First thing I did was power cycle both my modem and router (in the proper/usual order).  After they both come up, I start using speed test to find out what my upload speeds were.  I was getting about 39Mbps down, but only .56Mbps up still.  I factory reset my router.... test, similar speeds.  Power cycle all computers (just in case), and then modem/router.  Tested, similar speeds.   Updated the firmware to the latest. Same issue

Called BHN customer service, they factor reset it, but it wasn't in bridge mode.  If I by passed the 655, in factory mode (non bridge mode) upload speeds returned to better than expected states.  If I bridged the cable modem, upload speeds seemed to crash.

Had BHN replace the modem, seemed fixed for a day, then issue came back.  Had them come back out and replace it again, this time with a Motorolla Surfboard modem... same issue.  Fine during factory reset, however after they bridge the modem, upload speeds were fine.  Told BHN I would take it from there.. Connected up the DIR-655, and upload speeds crashed again. (.6Mbps).  Called D-Link Support, and the Chinese English speaking rep seemed to not be listening to me and tried to have me adjust my MTU as well as Wireless settings.  Long story short... the rep was a level 0 id10t and I hope D-link will consider hiring better employees/contractors.  So I was all about to give up and replace it with a DD-WRT capable router (which it takes me a lot to want to swap hardware), when I discovered the wan shaping was on.  Which I thought to myself... nah... QoS has never messed up before... why would it be the cause.  Turned off wan shapping... and voila.  Issue seemed to be insta-resolved.

Unsatisfied with that... I decided to dig a lil deeper. I turned on Wan shaping again, but decided to set the settings manually instead of auto detect.   

Here are the settings I used... (Advanced Tab>QoS)
Enable Traffic Shaping - Checked
Automatic Uplink Speed - Unchecked
Manual Uplink Speed - 5000
Connection Type: Cable or Other Broadand Network

Enable QoS Engine - Checked Automatic Classification - unchecked (this checked seemed to affect my upload speed by about 5-10% during testing) Dynamic Fragmentation - unchecked (this checked seemed to be the worse enemy for upload speed)

While I know I'm not any network guru (still have to use a subnet calculator for subnetting), I think I did a pretty good job drilling down the issue (once I got passed my service provider replacing modems).

Anyways, I've had overall good luck with D-Link products, even have a 5 port 10/100 switch (all metal) from 1998 that works great.  Hopefully, D-Link will just either put more documentation on the web, or hire better employees.