Yes, use a program made for filesharing, such as Kazaa or even ftp DCC in mIRC is for sharing small files, such as pictures, etc. So there's no need to speed it up.
You missed the point. mIRC is capable of transferring bigger files, it's just that a dedicated p2p program such as Kazaa is much better (and faster) because of it's multi-user download capability; you can choose the highest bandwidth of each file. In mIRC, speed patches generally don't work because your transfer will only go as fast as the other person's connection.
Never compare yourself to others - they're more screwed up than you think.