This is the case to some extent. When I upload new torrents, I don't often get a whole lot more upload credit than the actual size of the torrent itself. Sadly, this is because I live in rural Canada, where I'm lucky if I can maintain a 600 kbit steady upload speed using an oldschool legacy DSL line (ADSL2+). I can say with great confidence that I really do feel your pain. Where I'm at now, it's even a blessing to get more than about 3.4 mbit in download speed, unless I go into a more major city, and even then, depending on the type of connection, it's not more than about 7 mbit.
So…. I do feel your pain, but sadly, that is the nature of the way that torrents work. If there are a great number of leechers, but not many seeders, it is still possible to get some traffic from seeding torrents, although history will dictate that this number is not as high as one would expect, even with a faster connection speed.