Thanks for your comments & after some more digging I've come to the following conclusions. I know they're only answering a question that I raised myself & so may be of no interest to anyone else - but just in case anyone faces the same issues I did - here they are:
I can see the advantage of using the e-smith as the router, but there are some practical considerations. Chearper ADSL modems are mostly USB or PCI, which raises a whole bunch of support issues.
You can get ethernet ADSL modems, but these are not so widely available as most manufacturers offer ADSL Modem / router combinations. So its often cheaper and easier to buy an ADSL modem / router than just a modem alone.
Off course you can buy ethernet ADSL modems but you have to look around and so choice is more restricted. Personally I also like having a four port router at the gateway, even if its normally only the e-smith connected to it, as it does give the option of connecting another machine to the router for testing by simulating remote access to the e-smith without having to find a telephone line & dial out. It also means that if I need Internet access on a client site with my laptop I can connect directly to a free port on the router without having to worry about logging into their internal network.
I have used a combination of routers successfully with e-smith installs. The Netgear and D-Link routers offer a DMZ option, which basically just forwards all traffic to an internal IP address, unless other rules have been created. This seems to work fine, especially if you have a fixed IP address.
The only issues with this setup arises when using Dynamic IP, as the e-smith can't tell when the router is reset and so changes its IP address. There appear to be 2 ways to resolve this, that I can see.
(1) Use a router (e.g. Netgear) that supports DynDns as part of its config. The Netgear DG814 does this, although only basic functionality (note - early firmware versions of this router caused errors with PPTP dial-in, so upgrade to latest firmware).
(2) use some software based client to update DynDns. These clients can use an external website to check your current IP and then update DynDns if needed. There is an addon called DDClient for the e-smith, but I must confess at first glance it looked a little complicated to install (so didn't bother).
Instead I donloaded a windows client version from the DynDns website as the site I was installing had an MS server alongside the e-smith. I ran the client on the windows machine and all was well. (Check these forums for comments on the DDClient - many have got it working, I just didn't bother because I didn't have to)
Hope that's of interest to some other poor sole in the future.
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