[underscore]

Not quite so, in photography a lot of things are analog ie lenses, with computers it's more digital, more black and white. If the specs are the same but one costs more generally all you are paying for is the brand. Apple is the primest example of this, their hardware in any of their products is no better or more powerful but you pay more because of the name (ex there's an LG phone that runs the iphone firmware better than the actual iphone but costs less). My old D Link G router I got for $10 from Futureshop through a mail in rebate worked flawlessly for years, I only replaced it to get more range from an N.

All that aside for the most part a router is a router, if it works out of the box it should work for a long time, save maybe a cap going bad but I would guess every brand buys cheap ones. I tihnk there's a custom firmware, Tomato or something that would essentially make every router the same once installed.