2018 called. It's time to upgrade your wireless 802.11b router and USB1.0 802.11b NIC. LOL. How do you live with yourself? Don't you have any friends that come over, and want to use your wifi? Routers today support "Guest networks", and "WPA2-PSK/AES". You're lucky your router is so slow, because otherwise, the whole neighborhood probably hacked your password and is on it.
Edit: You don't have to spend a lot. $50 or $60 gets you an Asus AC66U / AC1750 refurb unit, which is plenty modern, and will probably run for 5-10 more years.
(But you'll have to upgrade again, or at least firmware, when WPA3 arrives.)
I agree with you on one thing, "New" routers, the all-singing, all-dancing, ones, with 2.4/5.0/60Ghz bands and quad-core processors for $500, probably are too much for most people.
But a lot of cable internet customers, may still be using a "Legacy" WRT54G or something, and they may not even be able to use the full speed of their cable internet, especially if your ISP has boosted speeds a few times.
But hey, be a cheapskate if you want. I'm sure that Pentium 4 you're still rocking is doing you fine as well. LOL. /s