Damn, which of the RP ASUS wall nipples did you have? I always thought they had too much of an unsafe Apple design for how hot they can get.
Do bear in mind that the maximum wireless speed you can achieve greatly depends on the antennas and wireless cards fitted into your network clients. And that maximum speed will further be reduced by walls, furniture and a possible cornucopia of radiation white noise you might have little to no control over. So don't sweat it if you can't throw all the money at the most expensive thing you might, on average, only make around 20% use of.
As to what I want... all depends on the situation of the installation in question. On most sites, I swear Linksys offers the most bang for my buck. But that might be nostalgia skewing my rationale. Or the fact that other people cough up the money. A lot of the aftermarket antennas are a bit of a scam, but no biggie. Haven't lately had any issue with Netgear routers either.
I myself have eventually switched to all ASUS. No specific reason. I currently don't have any reason or justification to abandon ASUS, as everything just tends to work - be that stock firmware or aftermarket solutions. The hardware is fine, the software is stable and, as of now, pretty secure, as well. I can't seem to be able to buy replacement antennas for them anywhere, so some of them got the glue or sticky tape treatment. Function and performance > looks.
For the wireless part, I prefer a stable signal to a fast, wonky one. Like that 5GHz signal that is really, really fast but only hangs around when nobody is moving or the dog ran three circles during full moon.
Truth be told, though, I use nothing but wired connections for all computers and consoles. In our home, wireless really only gets used by phones, tablets and the magic of sending music to the ASUS wall nipples around the house.
