We had (have) some GE devicenet I/O and an HMI that used to connect to a GE PLC. There were issues with the 5 remote stations at times, and we had to use Rockwell RSNetworx to interrogate the network, to find a data overlap.
The powers that be (due to cost) upgraded the PLC to ControlLogix and added a 1756-DNB card to communicate with the Devicenet remote nodes. When it works, it works, but when you disrupt it, it throws a wobbly. Sparkies were moving an HMI to another part of a desk, and somehow one of the dipswitches got set to a duplicate. Took a bit of finding for that one.
If we wanted to go from Devicenet to Ethernet for these nodes, then we need to fund and find fibre cable etc for the comms, so not going to be cheap.
As Ken says, when it is setup correctly it works. Try to add/modify something, then you could easily run into problems.
Not sure what Gary says though
keep in mind that Devicenet has long ago reached end of life and replacment parts may be limited
as far as I know, still supported and parts are available, certainly on the Rockwell side.