The only reasonable thing I can think of is they're maxing out the bandwith of the cables (seriously doubt) and cheaper hardware can't keep up as well (crap fir

The only reasonable thing I can think of is they're maxing out the bandwith of the cables (seriously doubt) and cheaper hardware can't keep up as well (crap firmware, too many packet drops from cheap hardware, etc.) But even then, it sounds like a huuuge stretch from my limited IT/networking experience.