Just a final update on my end, continued to have weird issues even with the older firmware, it never limited my downloads like 2.11 but would some times stop responding entirely for several minutes or until I rebooted it and then it would work again, and it kept happening, maybe every couple hours or so, not sure the exact frequency, but was always at inopportune times, so I finally gave in and bought a new router today. Perhaps your right and it was something to do with my ISP, bright house, not sure, though it was odd that I never had any issues with the base firmware and 2.11 and 2.10 seemed to have completely different issues.
Regardless, I did stick with a D-Link for my new one, largely because of the help I was given on this forum, so just wanted to let you know the situation and thank you again for your efforts in trying to help me. about 12 hours in with the new one and no issues yet, so keep your fingers crossed for me.