Shipped firmware is pretty useless as an access point; it has >4MB mem and GNU software. Aftermarket firmware may be the way to go...

CapnBry was an early modster and has a wealth of knowledge about this hardware. He had DD-WRT running without breaking a sweat.

Unfortunately it looks like building a NG .chk file is required and I just haven't had time (to build the nix VM it'll need to compile on). 

Good news... there may be a way around chk-ing the firmware bin.

http://wiki.openwrt.org/OpenWrtDocs/Hardware/Netgear/TelnetConsole

...I'm going to give it a shot -- at least see what's exposed in the TN server.