My Linksys is about 3 years old now so it may be they have slipped as you say.
I had a D-Link about 10 years ago and it worked fine after the installation but it was hard to install.
the Linksys I bought in like 2008 was just lterally plug and play. i didn't do a thing except plug it in and it worked. miracle really!
Lots of other players getting to the game now too besides Linksys , Netgear and D-link. I saw a Visio dual band on the shelf right next to their wireless built in Bue Ray. I have seen a few other brands too recently that I didn;t recognize at all.