With help from The Vicar, here and here, I was able to get the Time Capsule up and running. I elected to create a brand new WPA2 network, using the TC as the router; my old (non-“n”) Airport Express is now sitting next to the HP printer/scanner, acting as a print server. I used the Vicar’s trick of doing the initial TC configuration via an Ethernet link between my PowerBook and the TC, but I still had plenty of other hoops to jump through. In several places, it wasn’t sufficient to click “Renew DHCP”; I had to actually power cycle the cable modem to get things straightened out.
Never mind; it’s all working now. But no thanks to Apple; their supposedly “plug and play” configuration software was a disaster. I know that the number of permutations that they have to deal with is mind-boggling, including a gazillion non-Apple devices, but even so they botched this one. I was trying one of the simplest use-cases – adding a Time Capsule to an existing all-Apple network – and they couldn’t even get this right. Apple has demonstrated in the past that it was willing to hold up a product until the quality (hardware, software and documentation) was good enough; in this case, they failed to exhibit the necessary courage. (Time to re-read the “Evil/Genius” article in Wired.)
And now I have to update the configuration of all of my WiFi client devices. I just did my iPhone; next up is the Nintendo Wii….. Thanks, Vicar!