Wicd-1.7.0 fails to "lock-on" wifi signal, repeatedly drops connection

New version of Wicd-1.7.0 has several issues that need addressing. The first and foremost issue I'm having is its inability to "lock-on" to the wifi signal at my local "hot-spot". It repeatedly drops the signal, will attempt to reconnect once, then just sits there doing nothing until I manually intervene and force it to reconnect. Then in a short period of time it will disconnect again, then I must repeat the procedure.

In version 1.6.2.2 I don't have these problems. It would only disconnect after long periods of inactivity (which I believe was initiated by the "hot-spot"). Then it would attempt (and usually succeed) at reconnection. But unfortunately, if it couldn't reconnect it too would just sit in the tray doing nothing. But it wasn't much of an issue because it would succeed most of the time.

I'm running Gentoo "testing" ~x86.

With version 1.6.2.2 463 I'm using the following use flags; ioctl, libnotify, ncurses, and pm-utils. I used ipw as my WPA Supplicant driver and ioctl for the backend.

With version 1.7.0 552 I'm using the following use flags; X, gtk, libnotify, ncurses, nls, and pm-utils. Ioctl is no longer a valid use flag and isn't being supported in this version. So I'm using external as my backend choice since ioctl is no longer a valid choice and ipw as my WPA Supplicant driver.

I've switched back to 1.6.2.2 463 and have been pleased that my connection is behaving like it was before.

Why was support for ioctl dropped? Could this be a factor in why the newer version doesn't work as well as the previous one?

Attached is my Wicd log file.