Would it be possible to publish a list of MAC addresses that were operating in ad-hoc or AP mode?
I'll confess - it happened to me. 12" PowerBook running MacOS X 10.2.8. It was flipping into ad-hoc mode pretty much every time I tried to use the wireless network until I installed an updated Airport driver. Fortunately the menu bar icon shows a small icon of a computer in the middle of the Airport icon when it's in ad-hoc mode, so at least you can spot it when it happens, and fortunately there's a fix available.
Melinda