I use a hotbrick dual wan router. Cable and Dsl both hooked into it. It does an instant failover if one of the connections goes down. Depending on the application used, the failover is undetectable. However, if your using TT, it does grey out for a few seconds during the failover due to IP address changes.
The Linksys WRT54GL has 4 wired ports as well as wireless capability. I have 4 wired computers + wife's wireless laptop. Supports WPA2. You can just not enable wireless functions, if desired.
If you want a very solid router then go with the people who own over 80% of the router market - Cisco. You should be looking at commercial grade routers from Cisco, not the consumer stuff from Linksys and other companies if you want rock solid reliability. If you need a router for basic trading from home then you should be looking at the Cisco 871. You will want the version with one upstream Ethernet port and four sub-tending Ethernet switch ports. This router including support, etc. can be purchased from Cisco for under $1000. - Greg
I believe this is something of a misdirection. The strengths of Cisco routers does not lie in their availability, certainly not at the low end of the market. Of course, the perception is that they're the best - that's why they have #1 market share - but that status is down to their consistency and product strategy as much as out and out quality of their products.
With high concerns about reliability, why wouldn't one just get a popular home network router and a backup or two? $120-$180, for 3 routers rather than $1,000.
I don't want to get into a whole thing here with you as I think your post was extremely helpful and much more detailed than mine but the juniper product I mentioned is most certainly in the same "league" as this Alcatel device. FWIW, I think both are way beyond what the OP is looking for.