Thank you all for your help. Especially @eric. I now better understand the limitations of my Gl-iNet device. This part is a little bit heart-breaking:
“As there is no easy way to search this forum for all the known security issues with the different version of firmwares that GL iNet has released, such as the two issues I brought up in my post, the only way right now to find them is to read all the forum posts. That is a lot to expect out of a new router owner who may be under the impression that known security issues are quickly fixed or documented.”
But I also understand Johnex’s point that most other brands of consumer routers are even less secure than Gl-iNet’s. That is surely true.
I cannot spend hours a week reading through GL-iNet’s forums hoping to catch whatever security issues arise from outdated packages (and then studying the issue, and then to take whatever necessary corrective actions). It seems to me then, that regardless of the brand of router, it will cost me the least time OVERALL if I simply install OpenWRT at the beginning, and to keep that timely updated, so that I do not have to familiarize myself over and over with security issues. This despite the fact that OpenWRT/luci’s initial setup time is much more difficult than GL-iNet’s. I don’t want OpenWRT for its extra power and customizability; rather I simply want it for its timely security updates.