Thank you for this very detailed and thoughtful reply; this is exactly what I wanted to hear. For sure, we'll use a switch instead of trying to use the MX. For us at least, you have provided more than enough valid reasons to not even consider using the MX as a core switch, unfourantently. It would appear more trouble than it's worth right now. My biggest ask to Meraki I guess would be: For a company focused on "Simplifying" things, Meraki has a great opportunity to further simplify functionality of their MX lineup, by implementing more switch type features from the MS Lineup. I normally would say one of Meraki's great strengths is their holistic thought when building integrated products, and understanding how the product might be deployed and used. This has not been the case for others, like Cisco, who have often just cobbled together, haphazardly acquired product lines, tweaked a few things, left a lot of the old companies code, and made it 'work' with the Cisco stack, sort of... The end result is often vastly different user interfaces, weird quirks, and unexpected behaviors. My wish is that Meraki not become a company, where product line functionality becomes disjointed. Sure, it bugs me a bit that we'll have to spend more on a core switch, but oh well, we can do that. It bugs me more that adding another switch to the mix adds a unnecessary point of failure, will require a couple more cables, will generate more heat, and will require additional UPS & rack capacity. It seems like Meraki has the vision of converging traditional product segments into a single package. The MX68CW is a great example of this (switch with some POE, AP, router/firewall, cellular modem all in one box) - perfect for the branch office. so they don't need 4 boxes to do what everyone knows one can do. I'm hopeful either via software update, or perhaps a future MX, Meraki will consider adding more switch type functionality to a larger MX otherwise, I fear many people with appliances like the MX250 will continue to leave 20 to 23 ports vacant, because they don't have a need for them other than switching. Thank you @MattWhite and @PhilipDAth! Your responses were just what I was looking for.
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