Re: This is not "consumer" kit
"Netgear used to produce excellent kit."
That's not my experience.
Netgear's business oriented Prosafe product line may be more reliable than it's consumer products but that's not really saying anything. Stability issues (kit becoming flakey after some time of use) is quite common, depending on which of the various HW revisions of each model you get). Routers/firewalls are also underpowered for what they'd need, and the software is buggy as hell.
And this has been so for the last 20 years. The only positive I can say is that they replace failed kit within the warranty period without much fuss.
I'm not sure where people get the idea that Netgear was a good brand because it has always been only marginally better than pure crap such as D-Link.