Wow! I didn't realize this would turn into such a big topic! Yes, I started way back in the days of 300 baud as well. I ran a BBS on a Commodore 64 using Perspective Software's C-Net.. I swapped my 300 baud for a 1200 baud (they looked almost identical) and boy was that nice..
Around September of 1989 I got a car and left the computer work for about 5 years. When I got back with an Amiga 500, I was running 14.4 and that was pretty quick. My next computer was a Pentium..