Wifi range woes

I have a WRT54GL 802.11g router with DD-WRT firmware running WPA
encryption. Everying is great except for the wireless range. I have
many dead spots in my house and want to fix this by either

1) Getting another WRT54GL in WDS or Universal Repeater mode

OR

2) Getting a MIMO Draft N Router


My Big questions are

a) Will WDS/Repater modes slow down my bandwidth noticeably ? (Some
say it will cut throughput to half)
b) Will WDS/Repeater work with WPA
c) Is MIMO really *much* better than a regular router from a coverage
perspective
d) Is a PreN router (300 Mbps) going to make any differerence
whatsoever compared to a regular router (54Mbps) given that my ISP
puts in no more than 5MBPS

Thanks a Lot!

On Aug 24, 9:39 am, matc...@gmail.com wrote:
> Will WDS/Repater modes slow down my bandwidth noticeably ? (Some
> say it will cut throughput to half)

That is correct. Its basically a half-duplex repeater. The receiver
receives a string of packets and then shuts off while the transmitter
retransmits the string.