@Val D. please don't pretend to know what I know. You seem to be a person that needs to be right, even when you're not.
A better router in security and performance, like I said before.
Also; I don't have to enable or push any of the gimmicks (Game Boost, WTFast, etc.) for my clients. And they are gimmicks after all. Using this class of routers for much more than home use or very small businesses is asking too much of the hardware, let alone the software side of things.
Every single Asus router I have installed for customers starting with the RT-N66U has been met with nothing but compliments from any other router the customer was using before. They are that good.
Even the few that died a premature death (mostly RT-AC66U's) were given a pass by those customers and they're happily running an RT-AC3100 or above with a noted boost to both performance (range and throughput) and security (particularly those with an amtm installation and associated scripts). A lot are still happy with RT-AC56U levels of performance too (thanks to john9529's efforts).
With a few simple instructions on how to keep things updated on the scripting side (and the tremendous amount of work by the scripting authors, including
@thelonelycoder), their 'dark' network days are long in the past.
There is nothing like this, nor better than this in consumer land right now. Your complaints seem a little hollow.
As you noted; to get better, a move to the much more hands-on (at least to setup properly) enterprise range is hardly a knock on Asus. Let alone Asus + RMerlin + amtm + scripts.
Properly setting up an Asus router (if in doubt; a Nuclear Reset highly recommended), installing amtm, formatting a cheap USB drive and setting up a swap file and installing scripts as needed/required, is the pinnacle of 'set and forget' for a parent's network. Until the next time, when you visit them and update as needed, then.