A communication device includes a media access control (MAC) and a physical layer (PHY) processor and supports multi-profile communications with one or more other communication devices. The PHY processor selects a profile based on one or more characteristics of a communication pathway between the device and the one or more other communication devices. A profile may include operational parameters such as modulation coding set (MCS), forward error correction (FEC) and/or error correction code (ECC), a number of bits per symbol per sub-carrier and/or sub-carrier mapping (e.g., such as based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) or orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA)), cyclic prefix, channel(s) used in transmission, bit-filling and shortening, unicast and/or multicast transmission, and/or other operational parameters. The PHY processor also may be configured to operate within at least two different operational modes including a first mode of packet aggregation and a second mode of bit-filling and shortening.