seems you are talking about two different thing here - bulding up speed and building up rythm.

*note to self - add rythmic tutorial to site*

to buld up a good feel for rythm you need to get a hold of all the different forms of rythm. oh god.. this will be a large topic to cover..

for practing set your metronome to tempo 60 for example.
every click will be your '+' (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 1..) in a 4/4 beat for example. then start and play on beat (your metronome is offbeat). the slower the metronome the more difficult this will be. then start out with 8th notes, triplets, 16th notes etc.

then alter the metronome. the click is now your '2 +' and your '4 +'

and so forth

experiment with placing your click one 16th after the beat but play ON beat. exercises like those will help you FEEL the time and provide yo uwith the ability to place your notes precisely in a rythmic context.