Lewis wrote:

  

I have seen a marked decrease in overall quality of design & manufacture of other LinkSys devices, particularly unmanaged switches.
    

  

For a while, my office was akin to a revolving door to LinkSys RMA
services. Now, I either go Cisco (which, of course, is their intention) orto D-Link (for the small stuff).
    

  

I first saw a decrease in the quality of the LinkSys firmware. The nextthing was the first generation of LinkSys hardware, post-acquisition.
    

  

So, about the only LinkSys hardware I recommend (and support) is the WRT54GL
    

Hmmm, so that fellow was on to something.  I thought that might be the case.    

Then you do have some alternatives lined up for us in this area, should that prove to be necessary ?  

Often, as in the case of some Thinkpads, we seem to be welded to one or two options for something, due to a history of known OS/2 compatibility -- even if there are quite a few _other_ good products out there, which might be a lot better.  (I'm not sure if that's the best example, since I've heard that many if not most contemporary laptops, like Fujitsus or Toshibas, can be made to run eCS, although one might have to modify them, or give up on some item like sound support.  I've seen the odd Asus or Acer Aspire at a SCOUG meeting, and I think a Fujitsu model or two as well.)