A lot of good information here. I have a Linksys 802.11b system which works well. My understanding is that 128 bit encryption is slower than 64 bit, at least on some computers but I haven’t tested that.
For sharing internet, b is probably as good as g. However, I wish I had a g system now. I do high resolution scanning on one PC and transfer files to another. When you start to move a bunch of 10 and 20 mb files, speed does make a difference, so you need to plan ahead for potential system usage.