As I said - the ASUS software is not polished at all. By far not the way NETGEAR soft/interface is for example. The reason why I think ASUS is worth buying - it is because you can replace that software.
The point is - you are not limited with what NETGEAR or other vendor has provided - you can put in all you want. So far ASUS seams very reasonable hardware that will do its basic functions out of box. As you said - for more advanced things - it sucks. But then there is Oleg's firmware, openwrt and guides created by people like you and me on how to set up these functions.
...enough said, keep it real...