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0e1f616
(Get the code!)
Ok, so I've taken a closer look at this.
mke2fs *does* zap the first 1k of the file system (by writing all zeros). The only system where it doesn't do this is sparc, because apparently that seriously screws up the bootloader. I don't remember the details, only that the sparc folks were screaming at me about it.
Looking at the blkid probes at least, it always checks various offsets in the first 1k of the file system, and so this is enough to prevent blkid from getting confused. I don't know what grub is doing, but I consider that a potential grub problem, and not mine; if blkid does the right thing, and other programs are getting confused, then maybe they should just use the blkid library. :-)
Anyway, I don't have more time to look at this, but as near as I can tell mke2fs is doing the right thing. If someone disagrees, they need to specifically give me a request about what mke2fs should do differently.