AP or neutered router?

[mojo]

I'm looking to add wireless to my home network. I am EXTREMELY pleased with my current router, an old pc running ipcop, so I won't be replacing it with any consumer router in the foreseeable future. Common sense dictates that I should just get an AP and add it in, but I'm not able to find any APs that I would trust for less than $80. When you can buy a decent wireless router for $50 (or the wrt54GL for $60) it seems silly to spend more money just to get an AP. What advanced wireless features am I missing out on by just getting a router and disabling dhcp, etc.? Does a wrt54GL with DD-WRT have a lot of cool AP-like features and I should just go that route? Currently the only wireless client will be the wife's laptop using a cheapie 802.11 b card, but if I'm going to spend money on something I want it to be good quality and fairly future-proof.

Thoughts?
Recommendations?

[mbossman2]

other than being a little difficult to configure and manage, you can do as you suggest. just make sure that you don't use the WAN port to connect it to your primary router.

[mojo]

Anyone have experience with DD-WRT? What kind of wireless options are available to you?