The present invention, generally speaking, provides interleavers and methods of interleaving that satisfy the need for backward compatibility while effectively addressing competing design objectives. In accordance with one aspect of the invention, data is transmitted using a number of transmit antennas greater than an expected number of receive antennas. At least one pair of transmit antennas (ant′—1, ant′_N) is formed, and multiple second data streams (610a, 610u) are formed from a first data stream, successive bits in said first data stream being assigned to different ones of said second data streams. Block interleaving of multiple respective ones of said second data streams is individually performed (611a, 611u). During successive transmission intervals (617), the pair of transmit antennas is used to transmit a pair of data symbols taken from different ones of said second data streams, followed by an equivalent transformed pair of data symbols.