Hello all,
Well... thought I'd report back and let you all know what happened in case anyone else is having the same problems.
This is how I understand it (if I'm wrong, please let me know I'm an imbicile... it's the only way i'll know to shut up and quit confusing people)
My major problem was basically that my ISDN router (Netgear rt328 for those of you who are curious) was set up in "Single IP mode" and wanted to use NAT to work with any other type of web or e-mail hosting by forwarding the port. Now, my internal network was set up as if the router was routing any registered (ie routable) IPs to the internet. Needless to say, nothing was working, no e-mail via the exchange server, no web hosting, nada. SO...
A call to the routers tech support finally got the router routing and the exchanger exchanging and now everyone is happy. (As soon as the boss has time to forget all the down time)

A word of advice for anyone with a netgear product, if you have to call tech support, call after 6pm (california time) and before midnight (california time), There's a guy that works the tech support at night that is a WONDERFUL technician, And if anyone happens to know his boss's e-mail addy, let me know, I wanna tell his boss to give him a raise. Unfortunately, the reason I was calling that late was the fact that the daytime tech support wasn't as good and it took that long to get up and running.
well... this is turning into too long of a post, I'm sure I am boring more than one person out there. Thanks to the e-smith team for all the help!!! without you guys I'd still be in a pickle!!!
cryblood