Wireless-N routers that don't suck

Hi folks.  

Well I'm slated to move into the new house soon, and now that it's mostly 
wired I need to get a switch for all of those cables. :-)  Checking prices, it 
looks like I have 2 options:

1) Get a 16/24 port gigabit switch for $200-$250, then get a router to connect 
to the cable modem, then get a WiFi base station.

2) Get a combo Wireless-N/router/switch for $100 and only hook up ~3 of the 
lines for now, which is probably all I'll be using in the near term.  When I 
need more, just throw a gigabit switch behind it.

Option 2 seems far more cost-effective and productive, with one caveat.  The 
last time I bought a combo unit of that sort (~6 years ago, a Linksys 
Wireless-G), the on-board firmware on all such devices universally sucked.  
That is, it deliberately left out rather important functionality like static 
DHCP configuration, port forwarding, etc., and didn't really offer anything 
for someone who does more than live on WoW.  I ended up flashing my Linksys 
box with dd-wrt in order to make it actually useful.

Can anyone recommend a combo N/router/switch these days that doesn't suck, and 
actually offers such features?  Or am I stuck trying to flash the firmware to 
get a useful piece of hardware out of it?  Are any more flash-friendly than 
others?  (My preference is to not have to flash if I don't have to, for 
simplicity.)

--Larry Garfield
-- 
Linux Users Of Northern Illinois (Chicago) - Technical Discussion 
http://luni.org/mailman/listinfo/luni