Wow, I should have taken a break a time ago as this discussion goes way more productive without me.

I'm currently in a middle of a short travel and I don't have a laptop, so I'll answer without properly quoting previous pages.
Can the distance really be further improved? A have an idea implementing parameter "wiggler" with build-in signal monitor (RSSI and friends can be read on both sides) and throughput tester. It may lead to something or it may not. Definitely there's no point in trying to somehow alter camera protocol (it's already one-way udp, thus almost no contention).
Can changes be permanent? Yes, a small and absolutely harmless patch is needed on the shell script applying wireless config to provide "fixed" tx power setting, after that all parameters may be saved in on-board config. There no problem in creating client application that'll apply the patch and update parameters in the config (but please don't count this as a promise).
This is a little risky during development, however, because of wifi being the only straightforward way to talk to the device, so broken configuration data may "lock" it. Repeater wireless configuration may be reset by holding pairing button, but there is no such an option for the phantom itself.
RemE said:
Does the app in fact auto adjust anything in flight?
It ensures the power stays at 13dBm during the flight, that's all. I believe this doesn't count as adjusting.
RemE said:
I wish DCI would analyze the other app's for the Vision and give an educated 3rd party opinion.
I do in fact have the apk, but I don't have a tools with me. I'll try to find a time slot to do it tomorrow.
varmint said:
The app, logs into the camera and alters transmit power
Just a small correction, it logs in to the phantom access point, not the camera. These are two different devices (phantom AP has ip 192.168.1.1, runs openwrt and works basically as a wifi ap and a telemetry forwarder, while camera is 192.168.1.10 and runs some texas instruments-flavoured linux with custom tools to encode and tx video stream).