until I did this iwconfig showed nothing for ra0; it's needed on every boot. I also tried ditching the hated NetworkManager and using an ra0 stanza with wireless-* in /etc/network/interfaces instead, but that didn't quite work either. The interface associated to the AP (according to iwconfig), but no pings.
After modprobe rt2780sta, did you try
ifconfig ra0 up
pkill NetworkManager
until I did this iwconfig showed nothing for ra0; it's needed on every boot. I also tried ditching the hated NetworkManager and using an ra0 stanza with wireless-* in /etc/network/ interfaces instead, but that didn't quite work either. The interface associated to the AP (according to iwconfig), but no pings.