I'm looking for opinions here, ideally with brief supporting anecdotes.

ASUS RT-N16 router died for the second time in 5 years. They are cheap, though. A replacement could be had for $83. Given the failure rate, I'm leaning against this.

I'm considering an ASUS AC66U or AC68U and wondering if the AC68U is worth the extra $50 or so.

I'm also considering DD-WRT, with which I am familiar, or TomatoUSB/Shibby which is reputed to have better performance on 5Ghz bands. I value security the most, with performance and ease of use tied for second.

Any thoughts?

I'm running both an AC68U and N16 at home. My N16 has been rock solid for years, never a problem with it. The AC68 has been solid too, but I've only had it for a few months now. They're both set up as wireless access points on the same SSID so together they seamlessly cover the whole house, then I have a DrayTek Vigor 2130 doing the actual DHCP/routing. All in all I have no complaints about any piece of it, they all work great, never need resetting, never need rebooting, never need monkeying with.

I have been pretty pleased with my RT-N16 except for the fact that it has died twice since I bought it, the last time being December 2012. I remember hating it when I first got it because the ASUS firmware was so bad. I installed DD-WRT on it and that changed everything. Except for these hardware failures, it seems very stable and performs well.

Wonder if DD-WRT has anything to do with failure? I have an Asus that was kind of expensive but seems to work OK. Thought about using dd-wrt but decided it wasn't worth the time.

Maybe, if DD-WRT messes with the clock settings or thermal protection settings. I never used DD-WRT on my N16, but I did use Toastman's Tomato for a long time.

Not sure it could cause a failure, just wondering out loud. Guess now that you suggest timing then I'd have to say it's possible.

In some of these there was an issue with driving the wifi too powerful and burning it up.

Didn't think about that. Tomato does let you control the wifi output level, I'm sure DD-WRT does as well. I always left mine at the default, but you could set it some 30-40 dB stronger if you wanted, I could definitely see that causing some issues in the long term.

I bought the ASUS RT-AC66U and installed DD-WRT. Seems to be working pretty well. It only takes a few minutes to install. The only reason I ever bothered with it in the first place is because the stock firmware on my old RT-N16 was so awful. I had to reboot it several times a day just to access the internet. It would keep dropping the internet connection for some reason.

DD-WRT not only lets you do all kinds of fancy router tricks, it is extremely stable. It literally runs for months and months without any need for reboot.

This makes me wonder if perhaps the router might have run out of memory or storage space or something and over-wrote the OS or something weird like that.

Or it could be something related to overclocking or running the hardware too hot. I didn't adjust any of these values and just used the default settings.

I found the same thing with my N16 when I got it ~4 years ago, which is why I was running Tomato on it. But I found that even with Tomato, there were some versions that worked well and some that were unstable. I found a stable version at one point and then just stuck with it, and with that version it was rock solid, but after a few years it was hopelessly out of date.

I have found that the latest ASUS firmware versions (within the last few months, haven't tried before that) have been as stable as Tomato if not better. Rock solid right out of the gate on both my AC68 and N16 (I moved the N16 from Tomato back to ASUS after I saw how well the AC68 was running).

From what I hear, ASUS has actually be working with some of the open source developers to incorporate improvements into the stock firmware. I'm not sure when this began, but it definitely wasn't the case when I first got my N16 ~4 years ago. Regardless, I have been quite impressed with the stock firmware on both units in recent months. I haven't had to reboot either of them since I flashed it in...May?

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That's encouraging to hear. I suppose I'll stick with DD-WRT rather than trying to learn my way around the stock firmware.

Sorry if this is not relevant.

The following router was on special offer on Ebay, (Dabs)
As I was in need of a faster router and more secure router/modem I purchase one .
I have been very impressed by what it offers, I know it does not comply with the very latest Specs but cost wise well worth it.
Regards to all
Trev
TP Link TD-W8970 300Mbps 4-Port Wireless N Gigabit ADSL2+ Desktop Modem Router

Asus RT-N16...

It seems from reports that the RT-N16 doesn't like heat. The capacitors blow, indicated by the fact that they bulge at the top. They can be replaced if one is willing to try and handy with a soldering iron.

I have one that I keep in the shade of a cool hallway, sitting on plastic legs to let air in at the bottom. The top of the router is just slightly warm to the touch.

With dd-wrt build 14929 with standard settings, using it as a basic router to make a wired connection to my computer and a wireless connection to a printer, it's always stable and never needs attention. This is a light load, and if you want your router to take a lot heavier load, you may have to go to a model higher in price and specifications.

I installed 9dB antennas to concentrate radio signal propagation, but haven’t increased the radio transmission power or overclocked the CPU as my reading om the dd-wrt site suggested to me that I would have more to gain if I gave the router the best environment to work in rather than trying to make it work harder. I also replaced the power supply with something stronger and more stable.