The RT311 is great, my last firmware, stable was 3.24, and its a workhorse, had no problems at all. I did a firmware upgrade to 3.25, and I lose connectivity AFTER I do the update (cant connect to 192.168.0.1), and couldnt restore it other than with the serial cable. I downgraded to 3.24 and all is well again. Yeah I contacted Netgear and they will address the issue.
It is possible that you wont have the issue, if you have a serial cable handy by all means give it a try, if u want I can post the method to restore with 3.24 using hyperterminal & serial cable.
Again, version 3.24 is great, and stable and has no bugs .. I just like to be on the bloody bleeding edge and get bled sometimes
Cheers.