I think it's really cute the way r4 is so useless they can't make their own products.
So far the only company to make anything is Gateway.
If you buy anything else, your knockoff flashcart might brick your 3DS.
I thought MT went different path than gateway (at least for anything beyond GW v1.2), so I think MT has their real own team (or one individual, who knows), good or bad.
Buying GW or not is debatable (given if they really put in the kill code, it still has a chance of back fire as long as it's loaded), but buying from the like of R4i, Orange, or 3DS Link is definitely a No No from my perspective, unless they can proof they are not relaying on GW in the future, but that's a whole different story by that time. Afterall, at least a few thing has proven about the three companies
1. They don't check their code thoroughly (copied from GW or not, they still should check the code and run test thoroughly before any release)
2. All three of them has a solid track record of bricking, caused by whatever reason, the firmware is released by them to the customers
3. They still haven't issue some kind of service bulletin on the home page to inform their customers to stay away 3.2 (or whatever version for Orange), just make it like the latest 3.3 update is no different than any other update, which almost make their users think the update is optional (for those that are unaware of the brick). For something serious like that, they should try every way to inform their customers, causing by them or not, but they make it like nothing ever happened.
4. They did nothing to compensate their users or offer any technical help after the brick outbreak, other than a new version of the firmware (some people said it's just the old one).