short reply here...

1) apple airport expresses - great features, good build and functional quality...but limited range (by comparison) and they require software to set up, vs a web interface (I have 7 in my house acting as music zones and some as APs too..so I do love them, but I know their limitations).

2) Netgear - the last one I bought looked like it had a removable antenna...but it wasnt...now its broken...I thought the software sucked and was limited

3) linksys- was my 'darling' in this field but the quality has gone down hill a tad...still I buy them over anything else in the same price range...they have reduced the memory and as a result if you have more than 3 or 4 clients the 'state table' fills up too quickly and you have to reboot them (IE like once a month)...they have removable antennae, can be re-flashed with tons of open source firmwares....very flexible

4) d-link...I cannot belive how much these suck. Totally subjective, yes...worst on the market, yes! Some of them will still not let you (easily if at all) forward ports above 1024...meaning you can kiss VoIP goodbye!

5) buffalo...only used one, good quality, good reviews, good performance...dont know much else

6)Cisco - yeah I'm tossing it in there. You can get an Aironet off ebay for a small fortune but they are the red carpet of APs....if money is not an object, look for one!

7) Wait until tomorrow...likely apple will announce a new 802.11N product...seriously, wait one day

Finally...its a moot point if you don't enable strong WPA (or WPA2) security with a very long, very random password...period.