This should have been obvious, but I didn't think of it until it 
bit me...

The GENERIC kernel has the same limit/bug, so after the install was 
all finished I had a system that didn't work.  I don't know what 
it was hanging on, but I never got a prompt in response to the first 
login.

I booted single user and used floppy-net (ugh) to install a working 
kernel.  Fortunately, I had one handy.


What's the disadvantage of having NMBCLUSTERS too big?

Could this be fixed with some auto-magic (boot time) adjustment based 
on the memory size or number of network cards?