Maybe it's gotten better in recent years, but last time I tried consumer hardware (Linksys), there were actual hardware problems like overheating that didn't get any better with alternative firmware. My Linksys routers (I went through three of them before giving up) would lock up with increasing frequency as they aged, under both Tomato and DDWRT. When I went to Cisco (real Cisco, not Linksys Cisco) and Ubiquiti routers, the problems went away. For the price of a Ubiquiti router (under $100), I personally find no reason to spend time with open source firmware on crappy consumer hardware. It just works and is rock solid.
It can be both, but certainly one issue is hardware quality. The Linksys WRT54G and WRT54GL (of which I've purchased 8), are cheap electronic devices that last on average 12-18 months. I did have one make it out to 3 years, but I also had one kick the can about 6 months in - so it averages out. What's worse, is the failure case is "Intermittent performance" prior to just dying.
Cisco also has made crappy hardware in the past, I've had stacks of Cisco 2960 switches with dead ports, but they make up for it on the business side by having really good RMA processes if you have support agreements. They also make phenomenal hardware as well - I had a Cisco 7206 keep running without any human involvement whatsoever for 10+ years.
I'd be willing to pay $500-$550 for a solid 4 Port GE, 1U Rack Mountable, fully open, appliance that I could drop whatever operating system (OpenBSD preferred), that had gone through some extensive HALT (Highly Accelerated Life Testing) at temperatures -55C to +85C that suggested an average of 20 year life in typical consumer (23C) environments. I bet there are 10s of thousands of people who likewise would jump at the opportunity.
Sometime I wonder why the WRT54GL still get's hyped so much. Yes, it is probably the router that started the whole Wrt projects. But seeing that this 2002 relict still sells for 50+€ (on amazon) pains me. For the same money you get a superior device (eg a tp-link tl-wr1043nd and even that one is quite old by now) that runs Wrt just fine.
My experience with TP-Link has not been that great. I have three TP-Link devices (wireless router, Gig-E switch, and wireless AP) and I've had stability issues with all three since I got them. I regularly have to reboot each device, as each one will inevitably lock up after being powered on for a few days. I've also tried open-source firmware on the router, and it ran terribly no matter which flavor I tried; my 25Mbps WAN connection was reduced to about 5Mbps across the board. It runs at the correct speed with the stock firmware.
I'm seriously considering a build like the one in the article, however I'll probably go with a dual NIC Atom based nano-ITX board instead. Not only will it be cheaper, it will be easy to repurpose as a full fledged PC if I upgrade routers again in the future. A good example is this complete machine for $250, case and all: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008KB5YCK
They basically get a (minimal) job done. (Though, unlike the WRT54GL, the USR Robotics modems are pretty reliable).
What I don't understand, is why nobody ever built a somewhat robust version of the WRT54GL?
Just build a robust device with a Skyworks 802.11a,b,g,n,ac FEM and maybe four GigE ports. Something plain, vanilla, that you can stick on your desk for 10 years. I bet they'd sell millions of them.
