yes! agreed.
Is it a problem of the ad-hoc driver or of the hardware itself?
I dont know but I think it is both. Recently thanks to nbd (Felix) the driver became very good in my humble opinion. But still the hardware (FON) is crappy enough to be very cheap but still good enough for the price / performance ratio ;-) (Especially if you get it on discount from FON.com for 10 EURs)
Personally I love PC Engines Alix boards. Swiss design. Cool and very stable stuff :)
My 2 cents, a.