I think that the Linksys WRTG was what sounded the death-knell for lots of old hardware. It used to be the case that the oldest, cheapest box you had ended up

I think that the Linksys WRTG was what sounded the death-knell for lots of old hardware. It used to be the case that the oldest, cheapest box you had ended up as a router/firewall and since the thing never really needed to hit disk it would probably keep running until the PCBs turned to dust. I used to routinely use old 486 and first-gen Pentiums as cheap gateway boxes but now I will just flash a new bit of firmware into a wireless base station and toss the old hardware.