For potential time, and sanity savings sake since I'm a noob, from needing to troubleshoot and adding the fixes (something I've never done before) I got a dynalink wrx36 for $41 that appears almost brand new and comes in the original box with all accessories included. I believe the non tech savvy seller when they said that they didn't understand some of the settings and what they do in the stock firmware as it doesn't use industry standard terminology for many features.
I can't find an Rax120 on ebay or locally for less than 70 or 80 dollars in used or wing antenna damaged condition; one potential seller sent me a picture of a tiny little closed, cramped cabinet where he runs his rax120 and cable modem, right on top of the router, in 24/7 and since this model uses active cooling I figured it's probably been running very hot or at the least full fan speed for many months, just as an example of what I've found during my weeks long search unfortunately.
I'll still be following development on the rax120 as it appears very active. I feel like I'm becoming addicted to OpenWRT while I work on my degree. I may keep looking for an rax120 and keep cycling through upgrades, absolute degeneracy I know.
Again, much appreciated for the info and I'm excited to get the dynalink on the 22nd, this saturday!, and fingers crossed I can get WDS setup no problems after moving the Beklin rt1800 as a client for my HTPC, smart TV and PS4 pro.
Thanks Villa, I appreciate your input.
On a side note, and I understand this is highly off topic, do you think this custom build is worth trying/being a daily driver for the wrx36 since you own one? Appears to actually be pretty fully fledged and has extra features added but I'll have to get familiar with unbound in lieu of dnsmasq-full, not a huge deal but something new I'll have to learn.
Gosh, I still feel like I made the wrong call and now I see I can get the wrx36 brand new on Amazon for 79.99, but the seller I bought from offers free returns for a month, confirmed no questions asked, so that's cool. What do you think about the custom build though rather than the recommended snapshot firmware?