Currently, some of our Banyan servers have their own WAN links, but we are moving to multiprotocol routers. Our routers will be upgraded to route Vines, but not for several months. But meanwhile, we have abysmal performance and often can't even complete a file copy to or from our Banyan servers from some of our remote locations. You got that right. Right, and that retransmit time depends on the routing metric between the workstation and the server.
Routers then use the combined metrics to determine the best route to a specific network.
Workstations and servers use the combined metrics between them to establish the retransmit time-out length. In other words, communicators determine how long they should wait before assuming a packet is lost. Metrics are assigned based on the relative speed of the media. Generally speaking, speed equates to time, since a fast media should be able to transmit a packet faster than a slower one. Yeah, as long as these metrics are used consistently it should work fine for route determination.