Load balancing in SharePoint

Background: SharePoint 2010 required sticky sessions.  In effect when the 1st request from a user comes into SharePoint 2010 to the load balancer, the request will be directed to a particular SharPoint WFE server that will then serve the subsequent requests (the user now has session affinity/sticky session).

SharePoint 2013 has distributed cache so you no longer need to use sticky sessions, the load balancer merely needs to direct the user to any server (preferably the quietiest).

Possible options for Load Balancers in SharePoint:
F5/BIG-IP (Level 2, 3, 4 &7)
KEMP (Level 4 & 7)

Barracuda (Level 4)
Cisco - I don't think Cisco build dedicate load balancers and more however "Cisco IOS-based router product has load balancing capabilities".
Not familiar with:
http://www.coyotepoint.com/products/compare
http://www.radware.com/Products/ApplicationDelivery/AppDirector/load_balancing.aspx
http://www.a10networks.com/resources/files/DG_MS-SharePoint2013.pdf - NLB and SSL termination.

Key features needed off a Load Balancer:
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack protection
Http compression
SSL acceleration/ and termination
Persistance/Sticky sessions
HA via distribution of requests and verifying that SP is running.