Update to "Multiple wireless access points on your LAN": I decided I wanted to add MAC address filtering, at which point the pain of operating the router at the far end of my house in bridge mode became too acute. Changing any settings on the bridge required physical reset, and then restoring settings from a file, changing settings, and placing it back into bridging mode, all on the LAN side.
I finally had a bright idea and decided instead to leave it as a router, just turn off DHCP and WAN connectivity, and then connect it to our LAN through a crossover connector to a downlink port instead of straight to the uplink. Since the LAN is now on the LAN side of the downstream router, I don't care that it's not bridging to anything, and additionally I can now access its configuration by IP on my LAN.
Now I can configure both wireless access points from my desktop in my room. Sure, I still have to add each MAC address in two places, but I can now do it from one desktop.
Incidentally, my roommate downloaded some program for his MacBook Pro that lets him see what channel each wireless access point in our vicinity is on, and we decided to swap which of our routers are using channels 1 and 11. Now there is much less interference on the 802.11b side of the house, and the range of that router extends much farther out into our apartment commons. Score.
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