Servers: Are we there yet?

Yes, but I wasn't referring to streaming. I'm talking about the music that is now stored on the server's hard drive. It cannot be accessed without a working Ipad and a wireless network. If my wifi is down, the server is as dead as a doornail.

Yeah, I see what you're talking about now.  The Ipad is just a fancy remote but, in your case, the remote is necessary and wifi is the only way it works.  Interesting thought about the ability to use Bluetooth for this same capability.  it wouldn't surprise me if someone built that in eventually.

Something else I never thought of that occurred to me while reading through this thread.  The general assumption is that you need an internet connection to use wifi but that's really not true.  If all you needed to do was stream music from your computer, internet is not necessary - all you need is the wireless router.

Exactly; you need a functioning router so the wireless controller(e.g. ipad, android tablet or phone) using the control software can access the server.

Psag, to play music stored on a local drive connected physically to a one box renderer or stored a NAS(e.g. Synology, Qnap, WD MyCloud, etc.) connected by ethernet or wifi to the router you don't need your Internet Service Provider's system to be running. That only matters when you want to listen to Tidal, Qobuz etc. 
Wifi Routers are pretty reliable and inexpensive vs. other gear in this equation. Cheers,
Spencer

True, the system would probably work fine without internet, at least until the lack of internet updates started to affect performance.

Why lack of internet updates should affect performance?  Performance is always the same if nothing is changing.

Yeah, as a veteran in the software/cyber industry it is my experience that MOST software sucks, so I am not surprised at this in a music server. 
...However, you might do some discovery work here: The server has at least one IP address (wireless and/or Ethernet), have you tried accessing it directly via a web browser? (As in http://?.?.?.?  ...where ?.?.?.? is the 4 octet server address.) The server may express its service management through a web server that you could navigate.