I am sorry you are still having issues.
Would like to debug more, but understand you don't have the time.
It could have something to do with your user name and password you chose. I know that we had that issue in the past where the minimum password length was not being met, so things would not work as expected.
Maybe you could consider trying the
Express DVD. It sets the user name and password automatically, so when you log into the dashboard it meets the criteria.
As for your recommendations, although DHCP is turned on by default it can be disabled. The DNS does not affect the network if you don't use the HDA for DHCP. We will consider disabling it by default for future releases. The login is connected with Samba for the NAS piece, so not sure disconnecting it would be beneficial or simple. Again, something we can consider.
Since you indicated you are done trying Amahi, I will mark this thread as closed.