Yes. Same here. Ethernet is an oddly underrated technology. And Monoprice is one of these things that nerds know about and no one else does. There may be other companies like that—someone above mentioned an enterprise router company that sells better stuff than most consumer companies. Yet I've already forgotten its name.
Ubiquiti also makes a great series of wireless APs that are worth checking out.
My network right now is a Edgerouter lite, 2 Unifi AP AC Lites, and a used Dell 2816 managed switch.
Don't do that. Instead get a ethernet powerline adapter:
https://www.cnet.com/topics/networking/best-networking-devic...
This is like an engineer not knowing the mains voltage is 230V, or a baker not knowing about standard grades of flour.
Apparently I was grossly wrong, and I still don't understand why I was wrong and why the changes made such a large difference. Something to do with network protocols and response to packet loss or something, I guess.
I'm always posting latency numbers every programmer should know: https://gist.github.com/jboner/2841832
One of the big things that people don't realize is that bandwidth of wireless is split between every device on that channel. So if you are streaming to your TV/roku/xbox/etc over wifi, you are killing the bandwidth for your laptop and phone as well. Plus, if you live in a city your wireless bandwidth is pretty much guaranteed to suck because every ISP includes wifi with their modems, destroying the noise floor. Comcast modems are a particularly notable example, as they have a "public" 2.4 ghz network in addition to the "private" 2.5 and 5 ghz networks. There are no fewer than 30 wifi networks available inside my house when I check on my phone, and I live in a row house with metal lathe under the plaster, which greatly attenuates wifi signals.
I think the biggest barrier to wiring things is that patch cables are incredibly expensive if you buy them at Best Buy, etc. Most non-technical people I know only own the patch cable that came with their modem. Once I get them wired up, they are astounded by how much faster their internet is. They don't have buffering issues, the internet doesn't drop randomly, and it just seems "faster" (which I attribute to lower latency). I toss extra patch cables in my Monoprice orders now and sell them to my friends at-cost. To be honest, it's partially for my own sanity as well, because watching Netflix at 480p on a 50/15 connection drives me nuts.