A little thing like a stand for an Airport Express shouldn’t be a big deal, but the AirBase is surprisingly helpful. Not only does it help tame the mess of cables (although to look at most photos of it, you’d think that you didn’t see the cables at all - not true, they still stick out some), but by standing the Airport Express up, it helps increase the useful range of it. Since I’ve started using one of these, one Airport Express covers most of the building I’m in (our “barn”). Before, the Airport Express was laying on its side and coverage wasn’t very good.

The improved coverage effect has to do with how signal carries from the antenna. The best coverage is in a roughly puffy pancake-shaped volume with the antenna vertically in the middle. If the antenna is laying horizontally inside your Airport Express, then the pancake is vertical - almost certainly not what you want. By orienting the antenna properly, you’ll get the signal where you want it.