I have a Linksys WRT54GL flashed with HyperWRT + thibor 15c firmware - longest uptime is over 90 days then we had a power cut in the area.
Ive tried various Netgear routers and too many connections causes it to freeze and then requires a power cycle to get it back up and running.
Granted the Linksys is only 54G but the reliability is excellent. It can now be found dirt cheap from various online stores.
Other people use the DD-WRT firmware and enjoy excellent uptimes and reliability also.
Blueyonder 20Mb - 2250KB/s downloading a linux distro....yeah baby!