Ok, so using the throttle features in vsftpd are a bit counterproductive to the server. It sets the throttle for both u/l and d/l in one parameter and you cannot separate the two. As I'm trying to only limit u/l and not d/l this does not fit the bill.

With more investigation of the QOS from the WEB GUI, I'm not sure that any of the bandwidth shaping options for either uploading or downloading are working at all. Are all the expected QOS pieces installed in the custom firmware? (kfurge can you confirm this?). Does the bandwidth manager even work on the non-custom firmware???

So, the options are, as far as I can tell...

1) Install a different FTP server and dispense with the GUI interface (really don't want to do this)

2) Have someone brainstorm on an iptables entry to shape port 20 and 21 traffic outbound to a max and min rate (I'm not too good with the iptables app so I'm at the mercy of the gurus on this option)

as always, thanx in advance