Thank you, that review is a gem. The noisy fans could be annoying, as @Summit48 pointed out but I like the 3D printed airflow guides idea and will see if that works for me, too. Going to order now.
Additionally, I will get a Zyxel PMG3000-D20B instead of using the ISP fiber modem. Hopefully this is going to work out.
If no one has any better ideas, I will also go with a ZyXEL NWA50AX Pro as my AP. AFAIK Wi-Fi 7 is still not really working with OpenWRT anyway.
Some alternative AP's are
Cudy AP3000 https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/pull/17225
Netgear WAX220 https://openwrt.org/toh/netgear/wax220
Ubiquiti UniFi 6 Plus https://openwrt.org/toh/ubiquiti/unifi_6_plus
Can't tell which performs better or worse than others - personally I prefer a square shape and ZyXEL NWA50AX Pro being the smallest I would have chosen this.
PoE powered Wi-Fi 7 AP's running OpenWrt don't exist as far as I know.
Probably we need to wait for another year to see Wi-Fi 7 mature
(when curious follow the Asus ZenWiFi BT8 thread)
These are >$1000?
Alternative option: not the cheapest but when looking for something neat check 2.5G switch Ubiquiti USW-Pro-Max-16-PoE + rackmountkit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vWJZiRv818
Thanks, I ordered the ZyXEL NWA50AX Pro as my AP, so that is decided.
For the switch, I am looking for 8-10 10G ports and 2 SFP+ ports. Those are < $1,000, although the price tag is still painful. I still have to figure out the sweet spot between having 10G Ethernet with some devices like the APs requiring PoE and some "dumb" devices requiring PoE but no fast Ethernet (like PoE LED lamps or a doorbell IP camera, etc.). I will probably either go with a 8-10 ports 10G PoE switch (the Ubiquiti USW‑Pro‑XG‑10‑PoE is a good candidate) or with a slightly cheaper 8-10 port 10G non-PoE switch plus 2-3 10G PoE injectors. Both will be accompanied by something like a 24 port mixed 1G/2.5G PoE switch for dumb devices that just need PoE and a slower Ethernet connection.
There is the option of spliting the router in to components. Then you can buy the right components when needed and to fit the network design needed in your home, which a single WiFi router may not be best for.
My setup is a 2gb Raspberry Pi 4 for Openwrt at the edge which can easily handle 1Gbps and many other services, while being supported long term and secure.
2 managed 8 port GB switches one with PoE then an Omada controller and AP's. The aps are at each end of the house for better coverage.
If I want 2.5gb switches in the future I just change them, I have a fault I just change the faulty component.
l'm also not locked in to any compromises that all in one routers even with Openwrt may have and the whole setup is not much more cost that a good grade router would be these days.
The APs also get the WiFi out of your rack so they are not compromised signal wise.
If you are considering Ubiquiti for Switches, then it would have made more sense to get a Ubiquiti AP, U6-Pro AP is a good choice. Not sure why you were looking at Wi-Fi 7? The UniFi Network Management is very good as it allows the Switch and AP to be managed together. It also gives you visibility to devices connected to both the switch and the AP.
I am considering them, but not for the management software. AFAIK it requires phoning home, and I will try my best to prevent that. I flashed OpenWRT on the ZyXEL NWA50AX Pro, as I would have on any Ubiquiti device. So there is no benefit in having multiple devices from that vendor.
Some Wi-Fi 7 routers come with greater performance at a relatively small premium compared to Wi-Fi 6 these days. So I don't see any reason not to get a Wi-Fi 7 router, if they were supported.
I also noticed the products from cwwk. I'm generally not a big fan of "noname" products, but i already accepted the fact that there are almost no itx boards made by the big brands that holds an intel i3-n355 cpu. So this is where i found this cwwk board.
Fyi: the i3-n355 holds eight(!) E-cores, which are relatively powerfull compared to the older intel pentium and atom products. Even better: it should outperform an 3th gen Intel Core i7 mobile cpu while using way less power! I find this pretty amazing!
But i can't find too many reviews for that board. Feature firmware support for such products are also uncertain compared to the more well known brand such as gigabyte, asrock, supermicro and tyan.
Another thing: you mentioned an 1he case in an earlier post, keep in mind that normal i/o shields for a generic motherboard won't fit in an 1he enclosure. You probably have to cut the shield to make it fit (what i had to do once out of neccesity). An 19" 2he enclosure is the smallest rack enclosure that will fit a standard atx i/o shield.
There were generic shields available in the past, you could cut, made out of plastic mesh.
There are 10 CPU gens between those two, are you really surprised?
Yes, because if you followed technological development the last ~10 years there wasn't really a big jump in silicon development. Intel was stuck on 22nm and 14nm for a long time and only since a couple of years they where able to make the jump to Intel7 production process, and with that, the introduction of the N-series cpu's, where the n100 was a big leap in peformance for example in comparison to the n3700 - j5005 etc.
And nowadays stuff like extremely complex AV1 decoding (even in 4k) is "just" available on die. As if it is nothing.
So yes, i'm really impressed. Also comes with age i guess. Youngsters these days aren't really aware where all this technology came from and think it's just normal to pump 100 megabytes of data per second through a silly 8-wire copper cable, where we used to be euforic when our first 1megabit/second coaxial network was up and running, talking ipx/spx 
.
Alderlake and newer is a quite significant step compared to the older CPUs.
The Management software is free but only manages the Ubiquiti Unifi product range.