I was an avid Netgear user until I purchased the (at the time) top of the line/most expensive consumer router. Netgear quickly abandoned support for it and bug/security fixes that were published would hit all the lesser models, and take a very long time to get to the one I purchased (if at all). They released a slightly scaled down version that they sold at Costco and seemed to throw all the resources at that one, while ignoring the more expensive one. Company policy didn't allow me top open source the firmware and work from home, so I was stuck with whatever Netgear would provide.

I moved over to Linksys EA9500 and while I like the router, they were not reliable at all. Had 2 completely die (replaced under warranty) and the third required a reboot couple of times a week That led me to my TP-Link which has been outstanding so far.

I think my experience with Netgear was unusual and specific only to that router, and the Linksys one I had seemed to have some reliability issues, so I'm more the exception than the rule for these two companies, but I'm more satisfied now with the TP-Link, so hoping it continues...