Netgear RP614v2 Route via DHCP server instead of Gateway????

Due to intermittent connection problems I set up pingplotter on one of
my computers. When I looked at the route, it showed the first IP
address beyond my router to be that of the ISP DHCP server instead of
the default gateway. The router is a Netgear RP614v2 with firmware
5.20 _RC3NA Apr 23 2004. The address values are all DHCP assigned but
it looks like the RP614v2 chooses the wrong address for the gateway in
the route table.

I attempted to provide a default static route to the RP614v2 but it
would not accept a netmask of 0.0.0.0 for a user supplied static route.
There are no later versions of firmware available for the RP614v2 on
the Netgear website.

Has anyone seen behavior like this from other routers?

This is not a router problem. I don't understand it but I can't deny
it. I disconnected the router and hooked a PC directly to the cable
modem. I released and renewed for DHCP assignment (IPCONFIG /RELEASE
then IPCONFIG /RENEW). I verified the new assignments for gateway and
DHCP server. Then I ran a tracert to a server known to me. The first
hop again was the DHCP server.

Then I opened the TCP/IP properties and manually entered the IP
address, netmask, gateway, and DNS. The next tracert still showed the
aforementioned DHCP server address as the first hop.

If the gateway is in "bridge mode", does it not show up in a trace?
How can this be?

-- Confused in San Antonio