On Thu, 21 Apr 2011, David Holland wrote:
But, it does finish booting the kernel, so it seems reasonable to conclude that the problem is usb-related. (this is not exactly surprising)
I am not sure that you are right. If you compare the images you can see that booting with disabled usb stops before the the kernel with enabled usb stops (you can find the root/boot device message at all screenshots).
Regards Uwe