I bricked my router

Last night I decided to hook up with Dirk and Lance to play a little Halo 2 on through this program named XLink Kai. Setup seemed easy enough. Downloaded installed found Dirks server. And as I tried to connect it booted me because the connection could not be established. No biggie probably just need to open up the port. Didn't help. Oh maybe it is the Windows Firewall so I turned that off--no luck. Maybe my PC is just screwed so I will try it on my Mac. Same deal. Keep in mind this is not the first time I have had such an issue with my Linksys - - so I decided to update the firmware from Linksys. No dice. So at this point I have nothing to loose. I decided to try a third party firmware I had found online. It supposedly opens up the router to act like a $600 router. Sweet should solve all my problems. I told Lance and Dirk "I'll see you on the other side" and did the update. Well--time of death 11:30pm lol . I have purchased a new D-Link WBR 2310 to take its place because in all honesty I have kind of lost faith in Linksys. I use to love the company especially because they were an off shoot of Cisco. I have lost faith to the point that I am returning the brand new 16-port Linksys switch I just bought Monday, selling my Linksys Cable modem, and re-quoting a networking job I have.

I just cant deal with crap like that anymore. It isn't the old days of make it work anymore. network gear is relatively cheap so companies can't rest on their names and hope for consumers to follow suit. Screw you Linksys and thanks for the numerous link drops, lock-ups, programs blocks, and lots of restless nights of sleep!

BTW
In case I start getting any of those comments about saving my router. I already know I can, but if you are looking for a resource here ya go: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Recover_from_a_Bad_Flash I'm just done with my router ,and though I am probably going to bring it back from the dead, I am only going to use it as a network extender.