Yeah, I need to figure that part out. I'm getting familiar with uci at the moment, but I need to dig into what package management is available. There's enough space to install bash -plenty if ash wasn't there - but probably not enough to compile bash on the device.
Anyway, my original post wasn't about OpenWRT. I'll get what I need to do done, one way it another. It's just that I keep (rarely, but mor than once) encountering these ultra-pared down BusyBoxen in places where it's not necessary to have ultra-minimalism.
Several people have responded already as if I'm complaining about OpenWRT; one even suggested I "learn Lua, dummy," because Lua is available in OpenWRT.
I'm not complaining about OpenWRT. I'm asking developers to think twice about micro-BB builds in their products. Does it really need to be that small?