None of this really seems to make sense but here we go:
Pi3
Netgear Genie Nighthawk X4 R7500v2 Wireless AP
Wireless just would not work right
it would connect with no issues, it would ping with no issues, traceroutes to/from were ok (even TCP sync traceroutes -T)
SSH connections would ask for the PW and would appear to take the PW but nothing back from the Pi3 and the SSH session would hang
Finally after trying MANY things this seems to have fixed it:
On the netgear wireless I dropped the "mode" setting to "289 Mbps" from "up to 600Mbps". No problems connecting now, all seems well.
Hope this save others from similar grief.