I'm having a hard timne figuring out how a new router improved your
download
speed by 20% since your connection to the internet is only a fraction of
the
speed of any local router connections.

Believe it. Newer routers, especially ones targeted toward the 'gamer'
market, are generally faster at handling the overhead of routing your
packets. Even more so when there are several computers hanging off the
switch ports too.

I found my old router worked best when I hung it off another switch instead
of plugging the PCs right into it. The PC-to-PC traffic for file sharing
and such was enough of a burden to also slow that older router's internet
handling.

Here's a comparison chart to consider:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/index...per&Itemid=156

So while you're certainly going to be limited to the total uplink/downlink
speed to your ISP, that router sitting in between may be slowing things down
a lot more than you'd imagine.

-Bill Kearney