Intel NUCs or similar small form factor PCs are real nice. And one can get older gen versions for dirt cheap on ebay or smthg

But does it help increasing routing?

Maybe indirectly. Being online and reliable 24/7 is pretty important. In my experience Pis are somewhat fine in that regard until they are not and the Micro SD card breaks or the USB disk gets flaky and randomly disconnects. But apart from that, it won't improve your routing

Ask @warrentogami on twatter about Lenovo ThinkPads for nodes. Very surprising what these things can do, and how cheap they are on eBay.

Something more energy efficient would be good. Don’t need all this stuff ThinkPads offer

That's the nice thing: if you set them up right, they consume very little, about 6-8W, twice what a RasPi needs but too little to worry about.

That sounds neat, I‘ll look into it. Thanks for the hint 😃🤝