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[WWWombat]

ASUS overreacted and made all official firmware work strictly to the FCC limits whether in the US of A or outside.

Precisely my point - that consumers, when uneducated on the complex issues, are thoroughly at the mercy of the vendors who play fast and loose with the varying national tech specs.

Look up 'Asuswrt-Merlin - custom firmware for Asus routers'

Yes, I did the equivalent thing for the TP-Link WDR3600 - but was still encumbered by the ultimate hardware limitation that, while it could beat the FCC limits, still couldn't get up to full UK/EU spec.

Having discovered this, it did help provide alternative firmware when I moved house. FTTC took months to sort out (wrong cabinet id in the openreach database), and we had to resort to 4G for a while. The WDR3600 became a "ROOter" (Aussie project), with OpenWRT-based firmware that used the USB port to connect to a 4G dongle.

The ASUS overreaction impacted the custom firmware as the developer was forced to adopt the 'limited' functionality of the official firmware to satisfy ASUS and maintain the existing good relationship.

Aye - and the FCC have been trying to enforce the same "limited" functionality by, on the face of it, attempting to ban custom firmware. Or maybe they aren't, in name, but will end up doing so in practice.
http://arstechnica.co.uk/information-technology/2015/11/fcc-we-arent-banning-dd-wrt-on-wi-fi-routers/

Vendors could, of course, choose to split their manufacturing output, so that FCC-compliant hardware goes to the US, and the rest of us gets reasonable stuff - but that isn't likely to happen to the cheapest vendors like TP-Link.

I would recommend giving OpenWRT a try before replacing anything, it may very well be a zero cost solution.

Certainly worth looking at this, or one of the many variants.

[WWWombat]

This is no longer true as OpenWRT now supports DFS

Strictly, yes.

But, almost by definition, a willingness to flash OpenWRT means a consumer has educated himself on some of the issues, has found the stock firmware to be wanting, has found an alternative firmware, and is both willing and technically able to flash OpenWRT and turn it into the router he wants.

Your point is right - that OpenWRT can overcome some of the vendor-imposed limitations, and is getting better too. I used it myself to partly recover capability closer to the UK limits - but still not enough to cover the whole house. In my case, consumer-grade hardware plus enthusiast-grade firmware plus knowledgeable user still didn't cut the mustard.

But consumer-grade hardware, with stock firmware, in the hands of the average consumer, still seems to be badly limited.

[Aside:
In researching for this thread, I see that someone has tweaked a little more power out of the WDR3600 this year, on some channels, but still not enough. Too late for me, of course, as I've already moved to something where I don't need OpenWRT - on the very bleeding edge - to behave. The WDR3600 is now sitting in a cupboard, waiting for next time I need to fall back to the 4G modem.]