Hi Stefan
First item to note. A spanning tree root-failure is about the worst thing that can happen to a spanning tree. This can potentially lead to a significant convergence time.
Edge-port does not really help with root bridge failure and new bridge election.
Let me digress for a bit and then come back.
I see you have bpdu-filter and bpdu-protection on your edge ports. Those two features are sort off mutually exclusive. I would suggest you only use BPDU-protection. ( Except if you have a client on the port that does not like spanning-tree BPDU's, I have seen some very old systems crashing if they receive an STP BPDU.)
If a port has BPDU filtering configured it does not mean it will skip the blocking state, it means it will ignore BPDU's after the initial blocking state and always stay forwarding.
It is a good policy to configure edge-ports as admin-edge though.
-- To see if this might help you in your situation, would you mind posting the output of show span and show sys for a few switches(one of each model), I just want to see the state of the ports.
The above note is where admin-edge port might help. Since admin-edge implies it will skip the initial blocking state. Lets look at the output first though.
Having said the above.
2824/68 => 10.73
2650 => 11.54 ( Is this not a 2610 ? )
I just want to verify the versions and models above to be sure. :).
-- FYI NOTE --
BPDU-protection is for checking if you receive BPDU's where you are not expecting them, and then protecting that port by shutting it down.
BPDU-filtering is for throwing away BPDU's and that is if you have a sport where you do not want BPDU information to be shared circa a point to point routed link between separate switch domains.
-- END FYI --
In the end yes RSTP is very quick but you have to get the configuration good and right, as there is many options.
HTH
Gerhard
