Folks,
Finally got my Mikrotik router (RB751G) to be my main router connected TM's fibre modem and Thomson relegated for only VOIP connection/phone (Passthrough via Mikrotik).

On the Mikrotik, can also configured Netwach to detect Maxis internet disconnections and to reestablish PPPOE connection immediately.

Will try to document the instructions and share when I have a bit more time

Thanks for pointing that out for me.  Sorry I got confused by what you meant 

My WAN port is actually physically dead.. probably due to line noise from lightning  It was working before.

It's good to know about the potential problem with the WAN port due to the firmware on the newer 1043 models; so I will bookmark it.

For all of you out there, imho the TP-Link WR-1043ND quite a good value for a nearly full featured router @ <RM160, USB port, Gigabit ports, 8MB flash for openwrt.  Only thing missing is dual-band N wifi.

However, if there are other good value routers out there, I would like to be proven wrong (for my future purchases)

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Added on September 3, 2012, 1:30 pm

I received the above PM, so I am just putting my response in public for the benefit of all:

Yes, you are right.

My custom router is the TP-Link WR-1043ND running a custom firmware, openwrt. I configured openwrt to have VLAN id 822 go from WAN to a specific LAN port. You may find some more instructions in this thread.

After that, just plug in the thomson router to the specific LAN port above, not just any port. It should work with no changes to the thomson router itself. If it doesn't, like in my case, you may have to delete the telephony settings and re-add it back.

1) connect the dedicated VLAN port of your custom router to the Thomson WAN port
2) it shouldn't matter if the two routers are on the same subnet or not. If your mikrotik is sending VLAN 822 data to the thomson, it would be in ethernet frames, which have no bearing on the higher-level IP protocol, I believe.

and 3), you shouldn't need to do anything to the thomson, other than disabling the wifi.  unless you want to have two wifi hotspots.