Seems I may be in the minority of having severe loss of connection since the .77 upgrade.
I'm not having anything that severe, but things are strange of late. Trippers disappear from the app. They still work, but I can't see when the door was opened or closed. I had the hub disappear the other day for no reason and then come back.
Home Depot and Amazon have them for $24.97 and it includes two of the ge link bulbs. I am about 3 days into this test and haven't lost connection with any bulbs yet. Since the small hubs don't communicate with the zwave trippers, this doesn't help me with that problem but at least I have control of the lights for now.
I believe the trippers are actually zigbee; they're just not enabled with the Link hub. What I'd consider doing with your shoes is put all of your bulbs on the link hub and only keep the trippers on the Wink hub. See if that helps.
As for me, I just ordered a SmartThings hub after asking Wink support about the Minimote I ordered the other day. Based on what I see, the Minimote can be added to the Wink network, but can't run Robots (which is what I'd need to be able to control Zigbee lights from a Zwave remote). I did the math on how much this would bother me until the Hub V2 came out and determined the V1 was worth it (although I bought a used one from Amazon Warehouse).
In terms of Aeotech support overall,
they responded to my tweet to Wink asking how they could be better supported by Wink. Wink send them a link to their partnerships form. So there might be hope there.
As for me, I apparently have a Saturday of re-pairing 17 bulbs, 4 trippers, and 1 minimote to Smartthings. And then Profit.