In these recent cases, I don't know why a number of fairly high end models received very infrequent updates over the last year. It does not match the planned release schedule Asus tsaid they were aiming for a few years ago, so something has changed. I can only speculate. Maybe the plan got derailed between the large number of SKUs they released these past 3 years, and the amount of work involved in maintaining 384, 386, 388 and 102 code branches at the same time over the past 12-18 months. While having a shared common firmware code between all models should make it easier (tho the current heavy branching isn't helping there), maybe the QA is where they can't keep up with so many devices that need testing before a public release is issued?
I would also have expected more frequent updates for all these very recent models. Maybe end users should start asking them for it (which is far more likely to produce a positive result than coming on SNBForums to complain about it, where nobody from Asus will ever see it).
At least that gets you more up-to-date code, as I get the same GPL version for all models. I generally ask for a GPL update every alternate release.
It was easier for you guys tho, since you had like three SKUs to put through QA before a firmware release.
I agree that this is definitely something many customers appreciate. If I were in Asus' shoes, I would have made that a marketing point with their ExpertWifi devices - promise firmware updates on a two months cycle. The same could have been done for the Pro SKUs as well, tho these are really just upgraded variants of already existing models, and not a separate product line.
I also remember when Belkin made a splash by announcing "the new WRT54G is here - the WRT1900AC will get full open source support", only to discover after the announcement that Realtek had yet to provide OSS drivers to the OpenWRT devs. That took quite a few months if I recall.
