rt2x00.serialmonkey.com

Has anyone else noticed that the current windows rt73 drivers are supplied with different firmware to linux?
The firmware of the linux (and old windows) drivers is the ancient v1.8 for the rt73!
Does anyone know the significance of the small, but presumably important, differences and does this hold true for hardware other than the rt73?
I haven't noticed any changes when I swap this firmware into linux (using kernel drivers in ubuntu & tinycore).

Edit: just checked the rt2561 firmware against its windows counterpart & they are different also!
I would be happy to post the windows versions but I don't know if this constitutes reverse engineering considering the firmware is not supplied in "bin" format (or with the necessary CRCs) with the windows drivers.
P.S. For the rt61 the windows driver appears to only use 1 firmware for all variants (rt2561,rt2561s,rt2661) & it is most similar to the rt2561s firmware in the linux firmware v1.2 pack. Are the firmwares interchangeable on these devices (has anyone tried)??

*bump*

Interesting question. Is there a reason why there are two different sets of firmware?