Standards
Innovation can be great, by all means introduce a white box switch/router but for all that is holy, please start with making sure all the dull old 802 standards are working on the new shiney, that's a lot of detailed testing to do.
The last thing we need is situation specific network protocols popping up with non standard ways of punting the packets around a LAN, Token ring, DECNET & Appletalk went to the wall for good reasons (Not just because Ethernet was 'cheap and good enough').
Biting the hand that feeds IT
