The FCC's airwaves though. I have my share of ill will towards the FCC, but fact of the matter is while the router might be yours the airwaves are the FCC's to rule.
Rule by mandating locked down buggy horrible proprietary software? Absolutely ridiculous. And of course people will just hack the proprietary channel of updates, because of course it will still be flashable. The obvious answer is, make it illegal to use software to do illegal things. Don't outlaw software freedom.
Then protect the airwaves, not my router from myself. It shouldn't be much harder than shooting down illegal radio channels, am I wrong? If someone runs a router on channel 14 and it interferes with some legal signal, then they can go out, track down the source and fine the person who runs the router. Make fines high enough to scare most people to use illegal bands, make some example cases in media. If you can't make example cases then why bother?
Comcast and the rest of the large companies that now have to deal with net neutrality laws thought the same thing.
The difference is you're supposed to have a monopoly on your own personal traffic.