A partially related, anecdotal, data point: I have two old Ralink cards, Linksys WMP54G, which use the ral(4) driver. They're on machines sitting right next to each other, but neither has the supplied antenna; one uses a DIY biquad, and the other a POS wire bent to fit.
With this setup I've found the OpenBSD hostap mode works awesomely. It gives pretty reliable high speed (54Mbps) connections to a Linux client (managed mode). If I replace the OpenBSD HostAP with Linux + hostapd, it's very erratic ... at best, with a recent kernel ... with an older kernel forgetaboutit. In fact, I find that if I boot OpenBSD first and set up the hostap mode, then reboot without powering off, then the Linux + hostapd AP will work better than just going into it with a cold start. Obviously the OpenBSD ral driver is doing something right in initializing the card, but I have no idea what it is.
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