I think I've concluded that my problems are defective stick. I have a NETGEAR WNDR4500, which seems to be a fairly good router for all of my other devices, so I doubt it's a bad router.
I finally tried relocating the stick to the computer monitor that's connected to the desktop right next to the router. The stick was hanging off of the back of the monitor about 50 cm away from the router and still reporting 1 bar reception and taking forever to buffer a song. I gave it a very light tap and the signal strength jumped up to full strength and the song started immediately.
I've put in an e-mail support request, so we'll see what Amazon says tomorrow.
Interestingly my monitor apparently doesn't support DRM as the stick plays the audio for videos while connected to the monitor, but the screen is blue and says something about HDCP content unauthorized.
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