<personal opinion>I don't think it's your LAN that's feeling laggy. I think it's your computers.</personal opinion>
Now, why do I say that? A 10/100 connection is pretty darn fast. It will move a whole lot of data really quickly. But the OS and file system at either end have to see the file you're transferring, count the bytes, double check that all of them showed up, reassemble them in the right order, save the final, reassembled file and then update everybody about the success of the process. Whew! That's a lot of work, and it does not happen instantaneously.
Old cables can slow things down. If your cables are not new, you should examine each RJ-45 connector. If they don't look like they were just made, that cable may not be passing data as fast as it used to. And they can look great on the outside and not quite be up to it inside. Good cables are essential.
Your router could slow you down, too. These cute little boxes are little computers, usually running some vairant of Linux or a custom imbedded OS. They often suffer from small memory leaks, which reduces their free RAM store-and that slows them down. Rebooting your router will take only a few seconds, and can show you a really big improvement. I can't remember if Asanté routers have a reset button or now, but you can always unplug the thing for a minute. It will reboot when it is powered back up.
Current routers are smart enough that if you have a 10BaseT client on one port, a 100BaseT client on another, and a 1000BaseT client on the third, that they will not interfere with each other. The better ones make sure that none of the clients slows down beyond what's needed to match sender to receiver's max receive speed. I wouldn't worry too much about the Dell.
Finally, if you can find a gigabit router that you like and can afford, it wouldn't hurt, but make sure all your patch cords are REALLY good, or it will be like putting regular gas in a Formula 1 racer; great hardware, but not quite right.
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