We mentioned last week that many wireless experts are advising users to wait on buying first-draft 802.11n wireless routers, despite the sexy and sleek new designs coming out from Belkin, Linksys, and others. You can pick your reason to do so: the new routers have the potential to interfere with nearby 802.11g networks; it's not 100% certain they'll be firmware upgradable to the final spec; and you can expect the gear to drop in price significantly by the end of the year.

There's plenty more opinion out there this week, most of them lamenting Wi-Fi hardware industry hype: See PCWorld, and/or Electronic News. What's more, members of the IEEE 802.11 working group today failed to even gain a simple majority in moving the draft to the next level. Companies who have stated it's too early for draft gear to hit the market issued "I told you so" statements:

"According to Airgo Networks CEO Greg Raleigh: "Today's outcome proves that draft 1.0 was not as stable as some in the industry would have us believe. It calls into question the validity of so-called 'draft n' products. Airgo will continue to pursue its strategy of waiting until a more mature, stable draft is established before introducing products that comply."

The draft now heads back to the drawing board, and the group will mull the 2.0 version of an 802.11n draft standard for high data rate Wi-Fi.