ath9k through USB 
It can be done?
hahaha sort of. There are USB WiFi adapters that use the ath9k_htc driver, which is probably not a good idea to use as it's draft n.
There are also mt7612u USB WiFi adapters but the one I have has poor range.
It's possible but not recommended. Unless you really like devices with less firmware...
ath9k_htc supports ar9271+ar9285 or ar7010+ar9280, both of which aren't draft-n but the final specification, it's still not a good idea to use ath10k_htc 24/7 or in AP mode (quite some issues).
carl9170 ('otus') is the draft-n chipset, using ar9170+ar9101 (AR9001U-NG) or ar9170+ar9102 (AR9001U-2NG) or ar9170+ar9104 (AR9001U-2NX) - which isn't any better, combined with the silicon issues of draft-n wireless.
usb device in my experiences are never an option, only for monitoring
To add some data to this claim, have a look at @jeff's excellent performance charts over at https://forum.openwrt.org/t/comparative-throughput-testing-including-nat-sqm-wireguard-and-openvpn/44724/1 the ipq40xx is a r7800 equivalent if I recall correctly (probably EA8500 or so), the chart also contains two mvebu routers now.
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Another vote the R7800... it just works/rock solid stability.
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But compared to Linksys, it seems to me not very powerful and with little NAND memory. The flash procedure does not seem very simple to me.
Flashing the R7800 is trivial. Not sure why you think otherwise. I have no experience with the Linksys so I cannot comment. I did find this thread on a quick search (although some of the info therein is likely dated given the age).
Thank you for the suggested link. I'm taking a look and reading about some latency issues, I'll go into it.
As for the flashing procedure, I found the guide on the official device page on OpenWRT https://openwrt.org/toh/netgear/r7800 and I understand that I must use TFTP, but maybe I'm wrong. You have it, can you explain the procedure from scratch and tell me about disk space and performance? I am very keen to buy it, if I remove some doubts.
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I remember using atftp when I went from 17.04.5-->18.06.1 due to some differences in image sizes as I recall. Subsequent updates have worked just using the LuCI interface.
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Disk space problems? Stability? It now costs very little. I think I buy it.
What are you talking about??
I ask you if there is enough disk space for OpenWRT in normal use and how the WiFi is doing, if it is stable and performing.
Already answered:
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I agree with @moeller0 there really isn't an all in one that's entirely suited to keep up with 1Gb ISP. Consider a main router running strictly wired, and one or more APs for wifi. Ideally the main router would be an x86, but you can keep using your 3200 there and have generally enough CPU.
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I'm currently running a Linksys WRT1200, actually happy with it, but decided to switch to a bigger device with 4 antennas and better wifi coverage. So the WRT3200ACM was my first choice, but now not sure after reading about all the wifi issues and also the missing WPA3 (which I didn't need yet).
There have been other threads about the WRT3200 being a good choice or not:
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/linksys-wrt-3200-acm-router/50700
..I followed this one one month before and wanted to reply but then the thread was closed.
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/question-recommendation-wrt3200acm/5464
Alternatives so far are in that order of priority:
Netgear R7800
ZyXEL NBG6817
Linksys EA8500
NetGear R9000 (Nighthawk X10 AD7200)
About the R7800 there was said in the other thread, that the wired performance is questionable.
I need all the features:
Main Access Point for around 10 devices in the home, 2,4GHz and 5GHz, wired router for 1000base ethernet, VPN Gateway (lower bandwidth of about 100MBit for WAN) but not sure which type of VPN I'll run, maybe later running some network services like Webdav, NAS, ZNC...
The Netgear R7800 and the ZyXEL NBG6817 seem to be the best alternatives, if not choosing the WRT3200AM which is still not a bad decision in some cases. So if both the Netgear and the ZyXEL are based on the same QCA IPQ8065 design (SOC and QCA9984 wlan), what differences are there?
I definitely preferred the Linksys WRT???? series look and stackable casing over all the others, also being a strong casing for mobile use. But this only being a matter of taste, the functionality should be more important.
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This one comes with an older/ slower SOC (ipq8064 vs ipq8065) compared to the r7800/ nbg6817, both CPU speeds and wireless chipset have been improved since. As another drawback the ea8500 is only using a single CPU port to the switch, while all others use a dedicated CPU port for WAN and LAN (so two). Unless you find it very cheap, I'd go with the more current options.
Not supported by OpenWrt - and not very likely to gain support in the future (exotic SOC, with very little mainline support).
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I accidentally got the R8000 — and I'm very happy.
This and is it fully supprted?