That may be based on vendor implementations - I think there are a bunch of consumer routers or there that are based on reskinned old versions of OpenWRT.
yes the key is OSS openwrt instead of vendor-specific openwrt, which is normally lagging behind still, probably slightly better than closed vendor firmware, but not that much better.
true OSS openwrt has the fastest updates and security fixes, and it's solid.
i have not hearded wide spread problem with openwrt yet.