Is utorrent 2 the reason my uploads have been so slow?

Your torrent client has little to do with the download speed. More influential variables would be the bandwidth speed, number of seeder and leechers on each specific torrent, and the number of simultaneous torrents downloading/uploading.

Do a bandwidth check (naturally without any programs running that might be uploading data).

Take the upload bandwidth of your connection, and multiply it by 0.8. Input that figure into the upload bandwidth field in uTorrent.

ADSL connections are asymmetric – your upload is usually less than 10% of your download speed.

@the100thmonkey I think you forgot to mention how to run that test. Like many people, I use Speedtest

You are correct that you don’t want to use all of your U/L bandwidth for torrenting, especially not if there are other computers on your internet connection, and that upload speeds are often about 1/10 your download speed.