I've been attempting to explain to an ex-roommate of mine, who isn't particularly technical, how to improve his home network. Currently, his router/WiFi/firewall box is in the basement and isn't adequately reaching the entire house.

So far as I can tell, the distinction between "router", "switch", and "access point" are sufficiently indistinct that it's a real nightmare for a non-technical person to understand. Ideally, this sort of technology should be no more complicated than "you need another box; run a wire from your old box to your new box". Once there's more than one color of box, all of this fails.

Today, most "routers" cannot dumb themselves down to the point of being just a switch and an access point (at least, not without third-party firmware and a lot of know-how). Yet, it's generally cheaper to buy an all-in-one router/firewall/NAT/WiFi box than to buy more specialized boxes.

Conjecture: there's probably a market out there for "home network boxes", all the same (although hopefully not made out of ticky tacky), which automatically sort out everything, and I do mean everything. Plug them in and they sort out their local topology, figure out which one might have an external network connection, and even do WDS without requiring you to do anything at all. I mean really, truly zero configuration effort. Maybe even go the extra step of putting an LCD display on every one to say what your WPA2 password should be.

The only commercial product that seems to even come close is Sonos's home theater distribution system, but that's WiFi-only.

Am I missing something? Is there any reason that this couldn't happen?