People rarely recommend routers by their model number, if they recommend a router, they recommend the brand.

It's very hard for marketing guys to call Costco and say "hey, you remember that router we tried to sell you 6 months ago? well we just gave it a firmware update!", and close the sale

it's very easy for marketing to call Costco and say "hey we got this fantastic new router you guys might be interested in stocking", and close the sale