WNDR3700v1 wireless throughput half of DIR-825

I've only had one router fail before (although I currently own 5), and it just stopped working one day-- no lights, no anything.  Is this the usual way they fail if they don't just suddenly die?

I flashed the WNDR3700 to DD-WRT, and the wireless speed was even lower than with the stock firmware (about 3 MB/s).  I messed with the settings all I could, but I could not get it going any faster.  With that in mind, I went back to the stock firmware using the router's recovery mode, and it worked... but the speed was still 3MB/sec.

It does look like its giving all it's got.  Even with excellent signal strength and 300mbps connect speed, it's slow.  It's even slower in the b/g band, which probably has something to do with all of the other APs using that band around here.

The D-Link is actually working pretty well so far.  I don't remember why I switched from it to the 3700; I know the 3700's cpu is about twice as fast, but I can't remember what I was doing (if anything) where that mattered.  Or maybe it was unreliable... I don't remember. I've been using the Netgear for a long time!

I do find the onboard setup utility to be needlessly confusing compared to the Netgear version, and the constant logging me out while I am changing settings (and not accepting the changes as a result) is infuriating... but it is much faster than the 3700 on wireless and just as fast on gigabit wired.