I have managed to change default landing page for ALL projects (so if you click any project name on projects list, then you are redirected to the issues page instead of overview). It works in my Redmine 1.3.3 and possibly in other versions.
The trick is to change the source file /usr/share/redmine/app/helpers/application_helper.rb
Find the function beginning with
def link_to_project(project, options={}, html_options = nil)
and change the line
url = {:controller => 'projects', :action => 'show', :id => project}.merge(options)
to
url = {:controller => 'issues', :action => 'index', :project_id => project}.merge(options)
and that's it!