I added an Advanced section to the bottom of the underwhelming WiFi docs. 🙂
Granted, it’s really just an introduction to using the Particle cloud API and SDKs. I understand you’re averse to them, but I encourage you to try them out in some respect for a trial period and see what you think. In my experience they’re rock solid, and infinitely more reliable then the built-in web server.
And, no, the Particle cloud API is not reliant on the web server. The web server is an application level library that hasn’t been updated in 3 years. Particle’s entire business model is based on enterprise scale cloud services for their family of microcontrollers.
To be honest, the reason I included the web server was because I share some of your feelings about an isolated LAN. Unfortunately the web server library is just a worse experience. You can do a lot of what you want using the exposed Command function. Maybe give it a shot and see what think?
I have added a check for restoring from an off state. It will be in the next release.