[CentOS] Run a more recent kernel than 2.6.18 on CentOS?

Hi,

Usually I'm not one to complain about "old" version of the CentOS kernel 
and/or software, since I appreciate CentOS' stability. So this might be 
the exception that confirms the rule. I've been jumping through several 
burning loops these past days to configure my little MSI Wind netbook, 
and I'm currently considering going for a more recent kernel. There's no 
way the Ralink driver for the wireless card will build on an older 
kernel than 2.6.22, apparently.

I'm prepared to do some tinkering, but in the meanwhile, can you give 
some basic recommendations or caveats? This is not our production 
database server, so it's not a big deal if it's a little bit less stable.

What i naively plan to do: get a kernel SRPM from Fedora 9, try to build 
from there, and see where it leads. I think I'm going to give it a shot 
in VirtualBox first. But then, maybe one of you has already gone that 
path and can tell me if I have to expect something trivial or an 
experience of the hair-pulling type.

Cheers,

Niki

PS: with similar requests, folks usually suggest I run Fedora. So let me 
state: I like CentOS. I don't want to run Fedora.