SXR80 Can’t Obtain IP Reliably After Power Cycle

Man, I WISH it'd only been 30-60 minutes to get it resolved.  I'm up to the 3-4 hour range, and have lost track of how many factory resets and power cycles I'm up.  Had to take a break, as I was getting close to losing my temper. 

Additional observations:

1. Following a factory reset, I can generally get most of the way through the manual configuration. 
2. Automatic config isn't an option if you want to use the setting for port 2 at 1G, vs the normal Internet port.  Why would you use the slower speed port?  Because that was required to get the ethernet backhaul setup during the initial nightmare marathon config - not sure if it's still required with 3.2.6.100.  (This has now reached a new nightmare level, btw - surpassing that of my in-laws)
3. There seems to be an issue with how network detection is operating.  A few times now, I've gotten a message that there was a "conflict with my ISP's settings, and your LAN 1 IP address has been reset to 10.0.0.1." 
   1. For the record, I had the LAN 1 IP set to 194.168.X.X, and the DHCP address issued to the router for the "Internet" port is 192.168.Y.Y. 
   2. Sometimes that 10.0.0.1 sticks, and sometimes it flips back to the assigned IP - seems to be random. 
4. Putting it into AP mode is as far as I've gotten - once it starts processing the swap, you're pretty much done being able to do anything until you start the factory reset dance all over again.  I've never gotten the admin portal to come back up, no matter what IPs I've tried - not the 10.0.0.X range, not the default 192.168.1.1, nor the custom assigned IP.  DHCP server shows a lease for the correct management IP, but the page won't load & there's no response to ping / tracert.  And yes, that's while direct attached to it with a known good cable.

I'm literally done, at this point.  Typing all this out, and thinking about how much time I've wasted following the troubleshooting steps from the manual, adding the tricks I've picked up over the years, and scouring the forums - I'm done messing with it.  I may give it another 30 minutes or so tomorrow, but otherwise - it's going back in the box, and our old reliable Nighthawk will be back in action.

If that happens, I'll also be updating my Amazon review.