modeswitch (flash to black) on intel between grub and plymouth

Even after ensuring I have an up-to-date grub installed with the hwcheck license fix (verified from the grub shell at boot time), I get a brief clear-to-black between the purple grub screen and the start of plymouth.

Possibly relevant details:

 - plymouth is being started from the initramfs, not from the root system (cryptsetup)
 - I have grub configured to show the boot menu automatically, instead of the default of auto-booting to the first option
 - a plymouth debug log does show that plymouth is successfully using the drm backend, not the framebuffer backend; so this doesn't appear to be plymouth racing the kernel driver initialization.

Possibly relevant plymouth-debug.log snippets:

[main.c] check_for_consoles:checking for consoles
[main.c] check_for_consoles:There are currently 0 text displays
[main.c] redirect_standard_io_to_device:redirecting stdio to /dev/tty7
[main.c] initialize_environment:initialized minimal work environment
[main.c] attach_to_running_session:creating new terminal session
<snip>
[./plugin.c] create_backend:creating renderer backend for device /dev/dri/card0
[./plugin.c] load_driver:Attempting to load driver 'i915'
[ply-terminal.c] ply_terminal_open:trying to open terminal '/dev/tty7'
[ply-terminal.c] ply_terminal_look_up_geometry:looking up terminal text geometry
[ply-terminal.c] ply_terminal_look_up_geometry:terminal is now 160x50 text cells
[./plugin.c] ply_renderer_head_new:Creating 1280x800 renderer head
<snip>
[main.c] add_pixel_displays_from_renderer:Adding displays for 1 heads
[main.c] plymouth_should_show_default_splash:checking if plymouth should show default splash
[main.c] show_default_splash:Showing splash screen

Colin says this is unlikely to be a bug in grub given that hwcheck is succeeding, so reporting this against the kernel.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: linux-image-3.0.0-11-generic 3.0.0-11.18
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-11.18-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-11-generic x86_64
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.24.
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: CONEXANT Analog [CONEXANT Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: vorlon 3682 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p: vorlon 3682 F...m pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf2520000 irq 44'
   Mixer name : 'Intel IbexPeak HDMI'
   Components : 'HDA:14f15069,17aa2155,00100302 HDA:80862804,17aa21b5,00100000'
   Controls : 12
   Simple ctrls : 6
Card29.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:29 'ThinkPadEC'/'ThinkPad Console Audio Control at EC reg 0x30, fw 6QHT30WW-1.11'
   Mixer name : 'ThinkPad EC 6QHT30WW-1.11'
   Components : ''
   Controls : 1
   Simple ctrls : 1
Card29.Amixer.values:
 Simple mixer control 'Console',0
   Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined penum
   Playback channels: Mono
   Mono: Playback [on]
Date: Wed Sep 21 10:12:55 2011
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=f6ab3c43-61b4-4af7-bf03-fa3b147a1de0
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100816.1)
Lsusb:
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
 Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
 Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
 Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0a5c:217f Broadcom Corp. Bluetooth Controller
MachineType: LENOVO 3249CTO
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.0.0-11-generic root=/dev/mapper/hostname-root ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-3.0.0-11-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-3.0.0-11-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.60
SourcePackage: linux
StagingDrivers: mei
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-06-27 (86 days ago)
WifiSyslog:

dmi.bios.date: 08/23/2010
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: 6QET52WW (1.22 )
dmi.board.name: 3249CTO
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.board.version: Not Available
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Information
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.chassis.version: Not Available
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvr6QET52WW(1.22):bd08/23/2010:svnLENOVO:pn3249CTO:pvrThinkPadX201:rvnLENOVO:rn3249CTO:rvrNotAvailable:cvnLENOVO:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
dmi.product.name: 3249CTO
dmi.product.version: ThinkPad X201
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO