youll find in a few weeks it will magically shoot up.

Mine connects at all but 8000, and I see ~ 5Mbps or so from the newsgroups sustained.

Im syncing at 4-5mb now but Im still only getting 2.5mb down for some reason :/

I think thats typical though. There is a BT speedtest you can do online through your normal login (as opposed to the one where you change your login to the BT one) that gives you the "current speed BT think you can get"(called the IP Profile or BRAS Data Rate) as well as the measured download speed, which is subject to contention/noise at the time you do it.
http://www.speedtester.bt.com
Ive had speed tests show up to 4 Mbit but usually (if its working okay) I get 2-3. Some times if it stays at 400 kbps or worse for several days I kick up a fuss. The router sync speed always shows in excess of 4Mb.