Back at the point: nomodeset & wifi management

Dear gang,

Thank you all for your assistance a little while back with my suspend
issue, I managed to make things play nice.
Now, I have experienced an issue and a problem which I would like to
ask your opinions on.

One of the things that made my system play nice with suspend and even
resume was using nomodeset. Now, I am not entirely clear what that
does. Yes, it disables modesetting, but the implications are not clear
to me. What I _can_ see is that it resets the resolution in my terminal
at boot (otherwise set at 1024x768), which is charming but not
particularly practical. Does nomodeset interfere with the framebuffer,
or is this a trait of the driver?
Also, I have a recurring issue with Wicd disconnecting, apparently
randomly. I have an Intel Pro/Wireless 2200BG, which appears to have
been discussed at great length because the firmware was not entirely
free. I have used it with Fedora without issue, and there I use
Network-Manager. Now, it seems unlikely to me that NM should make any
difference on how the wireless network actually works other than how it
is managed, but it may have some wireless dark magic I am unaware of.
I see that Rworkman has some NM packages up, and I might try those, but
it would be nice to get an idea what the problem actually is.

As always, thank you for your help.
All the best,
Morten