pfSense 1.2.3 was my top choice. I made this decision based on features, reputation, activity on the forums, and the availability of a book on Amazon.
I ran into some installation problems. Remember that I needed to install from USB. I tried a bunch of things that didn't work until I found this great post on the pfSense forums. Remember what I said about activity on forums? Very important for non-commercial products!
Once I got past this hurdle the installation was simple and flawless. What took pfSense out of contention was a little known but unsolved issue involving the FreeBSD (which pfSense is based on) DHCP Client. After wasting a few days on this I gave up. In a nutshell the problem is that pfSense can't get and keep an IP address from the DOCSIS modem. I tried two different DOCSIS 3 modems (Ubee and Motorola) but evidently it's not related to the modem.
Too bad. I really like pfSense.
