Cautiously optimistic about wifi

I think I got it.  I got a switch and connected the ethernet cable, giving me Internet access from the BBB.  I then upgraded the kernel to

Linux version 3.8.13-bone71 (root@a3-imx6q-wandboard-2gb) (gcc version 4.6.3 (Debian 4.6.3-14) ) #1 SMP Tue Mar 17 18:07:44 UTC 2015

This seems to have given wifi a lot more stability.  Lots of steady pings from my Ubuntu VM and good bandwidth readings from iperf (pulled the eth0 connection just to make sure).

Of course I got better performance from the wired eth0:

For reference, here's /etc/network/interfaces:

And wicd-curses: