That was the first thing I tried--however I now have the problem solved, pretty much. Talked to a level2 tech at Motorola, and he told me that Kitkat was very particular about wifi security, and won't work with WEP encryption. My router's been set up with WEP for a very long time, however I decided to try changing it to WPA. Phone connected immediately. Signal strength still not showing quite as good as it showed on Jellybean, but I've had no further problems or lost connections. Now if there was a fix for the increased battery usage!
Bob