Thanks for the suggestions...

> - Have a look to the CPU utilization graph while you're processing the 
> transfert. Be sure that every packet is NOT logged (this may cause very 
> very hard cpu work and make your transferts going slow).

It's at 0-1% the whole time.

> - Have a look to the speed/negociation on to the switches (sh int status 
> on the 2924 and sh port status on the 5505), be sure that the auto 
> negociation was made in 100/Full.

Both were at 100/Full...and no collisions on the interface from the switch (a common side-effect of
having a duplex mismatch).  Is there an easy way to see the interface settings on m0n0?

> - Try multiple transfert mode (scp, ftp, samba etc) to see if it's not a 
> protocol/configuration problem

I did notice that i could grab files from the webserver over the same path and get improved
performance (1.5-2Mbps vs 150-200), but i can get 30Mbps from the dinky pcengines WRAP boards
running at 200Mhz or whatever.

> - backup your conf, try to do this kind of transfert with a clean config 
> from scratch with only rules allowing that to see if you have a config 
> problem now

I will try this for sure.

> - if above hints are ok, try anothers NICs :-)

Thanks again!  I'm going to see what happens with the new NICs...the NetGear cards aren't exactly
high end equipment. :)