Best router for a 2500 sq ft 2 story house

The main reason you will never get a consistent answer to any question like this is the house makes much more difference than the router.

When routers are tested in a lab environment under very strict testing rules (like they do for the fcc certifications) you see very little difference in routers. They all pretty much put out close to the legal maximum power which means they more or less have the same coverage.

It takes very little to affect the radio transmissions in a house. Wall paper with a foil liner can almost completely block it. The construction of the walls also greatly affects the signals. Things like spray foam insulation used to cut sound transmission between rooms also does a great job of blocking wifi.

In addition you have to realize that 1/2 the equation is the end device and not the router. Just as you point out with Mumimo is not supported. Things like 4 antenna on end devices is also extremely uncommon. So the performance of a router is also affected by what features the end device has.

This is the problem with asking people for their opinions. They mean nothing pretty much because they are mostly based on non scientific testing data. You might as well ask what kind of ice cream people like to eat while they use their computer.

Pretty much the only thing you can really make selections on are software features. If you need things like NAS support or client based vpn you can select routers that have that. I tend to like routers you can load third party firmware so I am looking at things like processor speed and memory. Again if things like that are not important to you then it doesn't matter.

So the real answer to your question is you must actually measure the radio coverage in your house and then come up with a plan. Get a router and place it in a room...it does not need to be connected to internet. Then see how strong the signal levels are. After that you know where you need wireless radios. Best would be to wire the with ethernet but you can use powerline devices if ethernet is not a option.

It is highly unlikely you will get a single router to work mostly because you need much more signal than previously to be able to override interference coming from all your neighbors who also are putting in lots of wifi sources in their house.