The way they handled security when that guy made shellcode for IOS was pretty reprehensible. Apart from flat out refusing to believe it at first, I believe they tried to get him fired as well as using legal tactics.

And in licensing model, be sure to include adding checks to lock out fair competiton ("genuine" checks). There's probably some other shitty things they've done that I'm not recalling ATM.

But otherwise? Well I probably am partial to what I first learned. But I recently tried Fortinet, and the configuration is so braindead stupid, I felt bad for all the times I got annoyed with Cisco.

Licensing is huge for not-a-mama-papa company.

Support is also a bear. I can't think of a time Cisco has significantly improved an acquisition in the near term.