> > Why not run pppd from the "normal" place in startup?  Just define the 
> > ppp peer in your rc.conf, and /etc/netstart will take care of the rest.

One problem I've had doing this is that /etc/netstart is run before /usr or
/var get mounted; in particular, this can mean that you wind up with stale
lock files in /usr/spool/lock (or /var/spool/lock) which make pppd refuse
to run for mysterious reasons (since by the time you check, the lock file
is "gone", having been mounted over).

Once that is taken care of, pppd starts fine for me from init.

The mount-critical-filesystems stuff should be divided into local and remote.