Comment 2 for bug 530292

I got tired of this issue and tried experimenting on my own. If I forcibly enable the use of ioctl by placing "net-misc/wicd -ioctl" in /etc/portage/profile/package.use.mask I'm able to recompile using the ioctl feature. Doing so then re-enabling it in the WICD applet returns ver. 1.7.0 552 to the same level of performance and connectivity I've enjoyed with previous versions.

Because of this one must assume that there is an issue with "external" that causes this choice to have much poorer connectivity than using "ioctl".

I'll attach a current WICD log file later.

I hope this helps