ATNotts,
Why anyone would willingly use AOL these days is beyond me..... but you've already covered that point.
All the cheap home broadband ISPs do some form of packet shaping, rate limiting etc. in order for them to be able to deliver the stupidly low prices.
But the problem with AOL is they are more aggressive than most... they also run caching proxies on their network that all user traffic is forced through. This has been hinted at by the BBC as causing issues (see BBC answer to question "I am based in the UK - why am I seeing the International version?" here
UK content on BBC online - Outside the UK - BBC - FAQs - Home)
The BBC have also withdrawn the rather useful iPlayer diagnostics tool, so I can't even provide you with a link to that either.
Basically you're stuffed.