I have installed VL71 light on my old laptop. I had a problem setting up wireless networking when my router was set not to broadcast ESSID. When I set it to broadcast. it worked weel. Whenever I reconfigured it to hide ESSID, connection failed. The solution is to write down ESSID in /etc/wicd/wireless-settings.conf manually. Look for section [essid:<hidden>], then find the line 'essid=' and add your ESSID, After that try to connect and it should work.
Not that I feel any safer wit ESSID hidden, but I like to stay as private as possible.