@IrvSp , 1. My "ageless" update suggestion was a conceptual idea. I was not trying to suggest a particular implementation, except to explain the idea. 2. There's no use speculating further on why...

Thanks everybody, while I was working with Support I did not check this forum for awhile. It turns out that Support offered me a novel solution. It is exactly what Tony said in his update just above....

IrvSp wrote I can't see them doing this...The 'cost' could be doing this for everyone who bought the router. What 'we' need to understand is the 'why'? Knowing that might more sense of this? I can...

@ArcherC8 , and others in the community who have assisted here: After many iterations with tp-link customer support (most of them unnecessary, as it turns out), I finally received an update from them...

@IrvSp , I am very familiar with everything you've said, and I agree with most of it. It may well be that they could fix the issue if they had control of my system, but we're nowhere near that point....

@Coach-D Well, I hope he can clear it up because I'm having very poor luck with the official support mechanisms. They don't even acknowledge my questions. Instead they offer "solutions" which don't...