Inconsistency with Orbi Speed

Wanted to chime in on this as well, as I've done extensive and tedious testing over the past 2 days to try to figure this out. First of all, I'm testing on an iPad Air 2 running iperf connecting to a hardwired computer on the LAN, so internet speed is eliminated as a factor. Secondly, I ensured before each test that I was indeed connected to the 5ghz band of the router or the satellite (whichever I was testing at the time), as the iPad will cling to the current connection even if you get closer to the other unit as long as the signal is good. Lastly, A LAN - LAN test from a different hardwired computer to the one running iperf in server mode was a consistent ~940Mbs (gigabit ethernet). The test as I configured it simply downloads as much data as it can during 2 seconds, and repeats this 5 times.

Now, on to the Orbi. My router and sat are (I think) around 20-25ft apart (hard to tell exactly), router upstairs and sat downstairs (so there are obstructions... floor, walls, cabinets). Standing in a position from the router that yields a signal of about -40, I get a reasonably consistent ~375Mbs (sometimes even reaching in the the lower 400Mbs range), comparable speeds to my Nighthawk R7800.

When positioned near the sat (and, again, confirming that I am indeed connected through it), sometimes I can run several test cycles back to back and get 200-250Mbs. But more often than not, it gets dicey, sometimes showing drastically flucutating speeds within the 10 second test cycle, other times just being solidly bad.

My first reaction was to assume there was a problem with the backhaul link. So, I plugged a laptop (WiFi off) into an ethernet port on the sat, and determined that the backhaul speed was in the neighborhood of 500Mbs, ruling that out... this is a problem between the client and the sat.  And bear in mind, it's not a torture test, as I'm sitting only about 12ft. from the sat with no obstructions, and have a solid signal of around -37 to -40.

Now, I originally did these tests on a system running the latest v1.4.0.34 firmware. I exchanged that for another Orbi, and tested with the firmware that came on it, v1.1.0.16 (initial release). It SEEMED to be better with that firmware, as I ran several test cycles and got speeds in the expected 200-250Mbs range, but after updating to v1.4.0.34, I started seeing the poor sat speeds again, which also occurred after downgrading to v1.4.0.16 as was suggested here.

It's possible that maybe the problem existed even with v1.1.0.16, and that I just wasn't patient enough to allow it to be revealed. Have not tried downgrading all the way back to that version yet, but will try to do so this evening.

I'm really considering jumping ship... when I went to exchange the Orbi, I saw that our Best Buy has the Linksys Velop in stock, which has received favorable speed ratings in reviews (then again, so has the Orbi!). I stood there for a while, contemplating whether or not to just go with the Linksys right then instead of trying another Orbi, but what sealed that decision was a quick perusal of the Velop's features in a review, which mentioned that this product has very little configurability, including the inability to even set a DHCP range, and it MUST be configured from the app... no web interface.

So I really want the Orbi to work, but I'm at a loss here.