This is very different from my experiences. You need to spend a little time setting up any router, and the only meaningful added step for a basic working config

This is very different from my experiences. You need to spend a little time setting up any router, and the only meaningful added step for a basic working configuration when compared to stock is the flashing process. Once you have it working, in my experience, it's incredibly reliable. Whatever issues you had are not the common path IMO. I've run openwrt essentially for as long as it's been a thing and the only instability I ever had was due to my ISP. I'm sure if you end up with some esoteric, poorly supported, or flaky hardware things can be different, but this is far from universal!