"Perry E. Metzger" says:
..
> In any case, ultimately you'll need to develop a code patch and submit 
> it back to the XFree folks -- luckily, this being open source
> software, they are likely to take it.

Ok, I will undertake this.

> BTW, arguably, the console driver itself should detect that the thing
> that opened it in non-text mode has exited and clean up. Figuring that 
> out requires some kernel code hunting, and is even harder.

Yeah, I was kind of thinking something like this.  When you think
about it, this is especially true if you're going into single-user
mode.  After all, in single-user mode the console amounts to a crucial
system resource.  I would think it would make some sense that
especially when transitioning to single user mode the system would
attempt to clean up after any program that left the console in
non-text mode.  But first I'll see if I can find the bug in the X server.

> Let me know in private mail if you need help in the course of tracking 
> down the issue.
...

I'll let you know once I've given it a fair try.

Regards,
James