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I am really hoping that Shibby brings out a new Tomato sometime soon, but if anybody is going to be punished, it should be the authors of the WPA2 standard.

Sure. I use one of these, with this firmware, making it a cute little self-contained Linux box with both a HTML GUI and a command-line interface that is as complete as you want to make it. (I've got a build environment on mine, just because I can.)

802.11ac, dual-core 800MHz ARM, 256MB of RAM and 128MB of flash (all of which are complete overkill for this application), along with multiple USB ports for plugging in random goodies.

+1 for shiiby's tomatousb build. the tomato UI is so well done, and the recent feature additions by shiiby, toastman et al fit right in. just make sure you get the right build for your hardware.

Factory firmware is a lot more capable now than it was ten years ago, since the developers have been cribbing from DD-WRT, OpenWRT, and Tomato over the intervening time. Ten years ago, the stock firmware was much less capable than the hardware it was controlling; today, that's not nearly so much the case. However, if you want to, there's Shibby's tomato, or Merlin, or even DD-WRT itself. All support popular modern routers.

If you ask me, the Netgear WNR3500Lv2 is the "true" successor to the WRT54GL:
Pros:
- Cheap! -- around $40
- Is supported by Shibby's Tomato port -- no problems with uptime; frequent updates in the face of Heartbleed, etc.
- 4 Gigabit Ports in addition to the WAN port
- N support
- USB support for a NAS, but I've never used that functionality

Cons:
- Only 300 mBit N support
- Only 2.4 GHz
- Internal antenna only
- Flimsy base, heh. Mine broke, but the router still stands up.

Netgear seemed to be pretty open to the idea of supporting open source firmwares through their My Open Router website and forums. ...But Netgear was also caught with a backdoor in their firmware, like a lot of other vendors, but I would hope that replacing the stock firmware with Tomato would help with that. (Although since I'm using someone else's build instead of doing it myself who knows!)

I've really loved this router, though.

I wish it were newer (AC support I guess?), had a 5 GHz radio and/or supported faster N speeds... but 300 Mbit is enough for anything I'm doing.

Well, I know Belkin started releasing the spiritual successor to the WRT54GL, but from what I heard from the initial reports, the third-party firmware selection is a bit lacking, as they are still working on releasing a port.

If I were to forced to buy a new router now, I would look at the ASUS series of RT-N/AC routers mainly because they are supported by Tomato by Shibby. Other than some additional features (like supporting the USB for external HDD/flash storage, printing, APC UPS, mobile stick), it feels just like the original Tomato. I use it myself on my Linksys E3000/E3200 back when I was looking to replace my WRT54GL.

I picked up 2 Asus RT-N66U thinking that I could have a high speed Wifi Bridge. Since this house is old it creates a lot of interference. WiFi at the router was 30+ Mbps ... in one of the rooms, down to less then 5 Mbps.

The stock firmware is crap. You can't port-trigger multiple ports, only port forward ONE port.

I highly recommend Shibby's Tomato firmware which is up-to-date to see which routers it supports.
http://tomato.groov.pl/

I've been using the RT-n66U for a couple years now without any issues. I believe it supports a number of firmwares, notably Merlins (http://www.lostrealm.ca/tower/node/79) which is just a modified version of the stock adding in features and bugfixes.

I picked up 2 Asus RT-N66U thinking that I could have a high speed Wifi Bridge. Since this house is old it creates a lot of interference. WiFi at the router was 30+ Mbps ... in one of the rooms, down to less then 5 Mbps.

The stock firmware is crap. You can't port-trigger multiple ports, only port forward ONE port.

I highly recommend Shibby's Tomato firmware which is up-to-date to see which routers it supports.
http://tomato.groov.pl/

Tomato fixed this awhile ago.

I prefer the Shibby branch.

Dunno but I wouldn't use that anyways. Without even looking it up, I'd actually wager that Tomato 1.27 was last updated before the patch that made heartbleed possible ever existed, so it isn't even relevant.

Tomato Shibby on the other hand is what you'd want, and yes, it definitely has that particular issue resolved as of the latest release:

http://tomato.groov.pl/?p=595

Shibby recently announced an ARM branch of his tomato mod.
http://tomato.groov.pl/?p=590

The Shibby mod is fairly active, with updates every couple months. Use 117 for the OpenSSL heartbleed fix.

BTW, just out of curiosity, as somebody who has never had the need to install OpenWRT, DD-WRT, or Tomato on a router, what features do folks use that necessitate doing so?

1. Tomato doesn't support WPS, which is useful for security purposes (WPS is broken.). Several major router vendors don't enable you to turn off WPS, or have the GUI "off" switch not fully turn it off. I'd like to have push-button WPS support but do away with the WPS PIN code (the part that's broken) but alas, nobody's made such a setup.

2. Running an OpenVPN server on the router is useful, as it allows me to securely connect to my home network from anywhere.

3. Good IPv6 support.

4. dnsmasq. I have a custom config at home that has certain domains (e.g. netflix.com) get routed to specific DNS servers (https://unlocator.com/ -- useful for accessing Netflix, Pandora, etc. from outside the US) while all other DNS traffic goes to the default servers.

5. While no software is perfect, I'm more confident in the security of open-source firmware than I am in the closed-source stuff from the vendor.

6. A non-crappy interface. Many vendors (e.g. ASUS) make good hardware but have atrocious web interfaces. Tomato is quite nice.

Basically, the open-source firmwares open up a lot of useful options that the factory-supplied firmware doesn't include. Now, if only they'd update to newer kernels -- AFAIK all of the Tomato forks like shibby's use the same 2.6.22 kernel. It'd be nice to have something newer, at least in regards to bugfixes.

I use a build of Tomato by Shibby on my Asus "Black Knight" RT-N66U . It has tons of features and is easy to setup. You could also try some of the other Tomato builds.

http://tomatousb.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato_(firmware)

Tomato isn't dead... The main site isn't being updated--the devs either don't have access or don't update the site.

The two main branches of Tomato are:
Toastman: (What I use) http://www.4shared.com/dir/v1BuINP3/Toastman_Builds.html#dir=zBnbpdpY
Shibby: http://tomato.groov.pl/

I've been using Toastman tomato on a WNR3500Lv1 and a ASUS RT-N66U for months now. If you're going to get a new router, I'd strongly recommend the RT-N66U, because the WNR3500L has a v2 which is totally different hardware. In addition, the RT-N66U is very fast, stable (never crashed), nearly impossible to brick and is dual-band. The RT-N66U is $170, and it's been worth every penny. Signal output is very strong--I can pick up my internet in my neighbor's house, without adjusting transmitter output power. In addition, the devs appear to use the RT-N66U's personally, so it has the most testing.

Tomato has been rock solid, stable, and an excellent daily driver for me for the last 5 years or so. I strongly recommend it, and my friends and neighbors use it and have been very happy with it. Do update to Toastman or Shibby--they're doing an excellent job fixing issues and keeping things current.

I still use my WRT54G's as wireless bridges throughout my house, but they do show performance issues when I go above 10MBps Upload/30MB Download.

I'm using this flavor of tomato and it has been great for me and sees quite regular updates.

I run Shibby's builds on my Linksys E4200... Can't recommend them enough:
http://tomato.groov.pl/?page_id=164

Make sure to get the RT-N build to get working 5GHz band:

http://tomato.groov.pl/download/K26RT-N/build5x-095-EN/Linksys%20E4200/tomato-E4200USB-NVRAM60K-1.28.RT-N5x-MIPSR2-095-AIO.bin

Yup. Currently running Shibby's latest (095) All-In-One build on my Cisco E4200v1. It's a good N router and Shibby's firmware is super stable with support for IPv6, USB & VPN among other things.

Check it out:
http://tomato.groov.pl/

Rock solid combo that I use:
Cisco E4200 refurb for $99: http://homestore.cisco.com/en-us/Routers/Linksys-Refurbished-E4200-MaximumPerformance-Wirelessn-router_stcVVproductId133604734VVviewprod.htm

Shibby's Tomato build (use AIO for most complete featureset):
http://tomato.groov.pl/index.php?dir=K26RT-N%2Fbuild5x-079V-EN%2FE4200

Do not use DD-WRT with this router as it's a mess (been there done that.)