11AC seems to have given vendors license to triple the price of WiFi consumer routers. Versus the tiny profits they must have been getting when selling 11n at $50.
Maybe the marketing psychology is working (costs a lot more now, must be better).
The optimistic view is that 11AC prices are simply the early-adopter prices and one should just wait. And wait for popular 11AC clients and handhelds.
If you work out various inflation adjusted prices from 11b through current 11ac gear, basically all wireless routers when brand new for the "top of the line" stuff has been in the $200-250 price range, so the current crop of absolutely "absurdly priced" 11ac routers is actually only price slightly ahead of "top of the line" new tech wirouters.
Its just that "older" stuff gets depressed in price. Look at the N66u, IIRC when it was first new it was on the market for ~$200-250 and if you also think about it, whether inflating the price or not, the topest end of the line routers now have more radios/radio chains as well as generally other "more components" going on inside of them, which increases the BOM by comparison for the manufacturers, so to keep margins, the price has to go up.
Oh, sure, I think it is absurd to pay more than around $100-150 for a wifi router or access point, short of some very specific and "niche" features, like weather proof casing, POE ability, zero hand-off ability, etc. That said, ALL tech manufacturers have both planned obselesence, as well as higher margins on brand new stuff.
It is part of the reason why my suggestion is, that if you don't need all of the fancy features and don't have a very robust internet connection and/or do a LOT of WLAN transfer, the TP-Link WDR3600 really is an awesome router at an unbeatable price (~$50) and until you start talking >100Mbps speed requirements (it can do ~200Mbps real transfer speeds, but of course you need to be close to the router), it is going to be more than enough for your needs. Even if you get in to >100Mbps requirements with a fast internet connection or demanding WLAN transfers, then maybe looking at the C7/8 Archer, or possibly looking at getting a T-Mobile AC66u and flashing it with stock firmware is the best way to go.
Obviously some people keep their router for WAY past when they should (evidenced by all of the people with ancient 11g Linksys routers asking why they only get 20Mbps on their 30-100Mbps internet connection)...but most people, even "throw backs" technologically really only keep their router for 3-5 years, so by the time their decent, but not bleeding edge router starts failing to keep up with their improving internet connection or needs, they have or already will be moving on to something new. No need to pay $300 for something that would probably still be replaced in 3-5 years when something that is $100 or less (maybe a LOT less) will still meet all of their needs, and then some, for those 3-5 years.
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