Hello,
I'm not here to defend D-Link but they don't make chipset, as far as I know some of their products use Intersil chipset and some use Atheros. So, which D-link card have you tested? I would not say that D-Link is bad card but make sure you always have the most recent firmware version.
Now about Centrino, first Centrino is not just WLAN chipset, it has Video/i/o controller and Wireless, the wireless portion that comes with Centrino uses Philips Front-End and TI MAC/Baseband and Intel is going to change this for sure.
Intel, is designing their own 802.11 chipset, they just bought Mobilian (chipset maker that has bluetooth) so they will not use anybody's chipset but their own.