That is actually a good idea simply for testing purposes. Would two Macs, same situation (both of you next to each other) exhibit the same drop in speeds....

I don't see how this would help, but maybe an external Dr. Bott omi-directional antenna on the basestation. But all that is going to do is make your network stronger. I don't see how that would help.

But along those lines.... what is the db strenght of the antenna in the AE, vs the external antenna of the wrt? I dunno, but might be interesting to google it...