When we reviewed the first generation TL-WR1043ND back in 2010 we gave it a Silver Award. It would become one of the most popular TP-Link routers, perhaps even the most popular one. It was very affordable and packed a lot of power, including gigabit network ports, and you could install dd-wrt and other open source firmware on it.  It made the TL-WR1043ND very popular among the real router enthusiasts who enjoy managing every single aspect of their home network.