I have to report a partial success. As suggested in the thread quoted in the post above (
this one), I tried recompiling ndiswrapper version 1.58rc1 (the latest development version) from scratch, and using the version of the drivers available there.
Well, the wlan interface went up and started scanning, but I couldn't connect to my home Wifi. I double checked and the password was right, and the router was set not to blacklist any MAC address (not wise, I know, but I set it this way for this test), but only to use WPA2 for authentication. No success. I tried the infamous Netgear adapter on two other Windows computers, and it worked straight away. It still wouldn't work putting it back in my laptop.
So I tried to change the 802.11 mode on my router. It was set to "Up to 300Mbps", which I guess is N. Setting it to "Up to 145Mbps" (maybe G?) still wouldn't work. But setting it to "Up to 54 Mbps" worked.
So, it looks like the issue is solved, but I still consider it a partial success only, and don't feel marking this thread with [SOLVED] is the right thing to do. There still are issues to iron out.
To start with, the connection gets dropped during updates. Relaunching ndiswrapper or even restarting were not enough, I had to uninstall ndiswrapper, recompile and reinstall. I might have done something wrong there, but the other unsatisfying aspect is having to lower the speed of the Wifi network to connect. I can certainly do this in my house, but when on the move I cannot expect people to mess with their setting with my convenience. Furthermore this adapter works at full speed with other computers.