FTP and VPN issues

Just purchased the the new dual band Airport when my Linksys WRT350 died. Everything was going fine until I needed to setup FTP. My internet provider Charter blocks port 21 so I need to redirect it. I've done this in the past, and it's a simple task no big deal. However I setup port redirection and it is not working. I've looked all over the web and so far can not figure out why it will not work. I've even set my mac to the default host on the Air port.

So now issue number two, I've got a ESX VMWARE server running which I've setup VPN on. Worked perfectly fine in the past. I've once again setup port redirection to allow PPTP to pass through to the server, and it's not working. When I try to connect the server says I have the wrong username and password. I've check my username and password. Nothing has changed other than the new router. I have also set the VPN server to the default host and that doesn't help either. VPN out works fine but the port redirect does not.

I'm getting a little heated, I bought the Apple solution, since I've always been a big mac guy. Furthermore I bought it because Linksys routers seem to die every so many years, and well I'm sick of that. I work on things like this everyday of the week, this is nothing new to me. But I confess this has me scratching my head.

Help