The reason that's true is that short cables aren't as prone to introduce noise, which is the only way cables can make a difference for power.
100 miles of aluminum wire to your breaker panel from the power plant. 200 ft of romex from the breaker box to your outlet. 2 ft of anything from the outlet to your gear...
Btw, Vicki's gonna start banning people if other people who own these things don't start posting impressions. I'm trying to talk her out of it, but you know how she can get.
In this case, the fault isn't apple's, it's dlink. There should be a way to see what the hex password is for the wep network
Realistically tho, wep is awful, and if you can, you shoudl upgrade to a wpa capable router. And for the most part, wpa jsut works for almost everything.