Home monitoring system reliability?

[tigerowner]

I have had the home monitoring system with 2 cameras and several switches for quite some time.  I use it only when we are on a trip (3-4X per year).  It works fine while we are there, because if there's a glitch it means NOTHING - I can recover from it.  However, on occasion while we're away, both cameras and the gateway device have "gone offline"  randomly, rendering the system USELESS, because I haven't a clue how to recover from this situation remotely.  While it is functioning, the video recorded is tantalizingly useful - however, this just exacerbates my frustration when the system breaks down.  Further, when the gateway device is offline, a question is presented: "troubleshoot now?" - however, it is a rhetorical question, since the system will not conduct any meaningful troubleshooting, there is no way to answer the question except to say "yes", and the system will not allow you to do anything else until you let it "troubleshoot"  For example, I would like to view some of the many camera recorings made BEFORE the gateway device went offline - how does one do that?  Am I to believe that the gateway device is actually the recording device?  Or is it simply that the website designer decided that if the gateway device was offline, nothing useful could be accomplished (apparently including troubleshooting)?  If there is no way to re-start the gateway device and all of the other devices remotely, and if they aren't reliable at staying on-line, exactly what use is this system?  I would appreciate any words of wisdom which can help me get any value whatsoever out of these devices and the fees I pay monthly....  Cycling power, resetting, and the like are not much of an option from 2500 miles away....  Thanks in advance for any help you can provide....