OK, a little ray of hope on this: I've just switched (or am in the process of doing so) from Virgin Media to NTLTelewest - turns out that NTLTelewest still exist, but only selling to "Businesses".
The connection is not throttled unlike the VM connections and also offers a "free" phone line and router included in the price, which is £3 more than VM @ £40 per month. This is a Fixed IP as well so you can finally use that domain name you bought
http://www.ntltelewestbusiness.co.uk/
Makes you realise just how piss poor VM are, well worth another £3 to me to have a usable (past 4pm) connection