Weird weird weird.... check this out..
today i downloaded the latest firmware from asus's website, again.. i figured 'what the hell..' and i logged in through luci, and attempted the firmware upgrade through the gui. it sat there spinning for a while. i looked at the lights and they were all illuminated (unlike with the openwrt firmware, where only 2 were illuminated).
so i tried opening the usual 192.168.1.1, but nothing.. again, i figured 'what the hell...' and i powered it off.
i powered it back on, tried again, but nothing.. so i tried 192.168.1.2, which is the address i had assigned to it in its previous life (hoping i would be brought to the default luci page) and the asus firmware came up!!
this is where it gets really weird.. i tried the admin password i had set for it, and it worked.. i went in to look around, and ALLLLLLL the settings were still there! so, despite being over written by openwrt (and openwrt claimed all the storage on the flash), it never wiped it out completely and when i was able to get the asus firmware installed, all the settings were still there!!
i re-flashed it again with the latest firmware just to make sure all was written to the flash correctly..
strange.. oh well.. i've got my asus wifi back.. that's all that matters