Genkernel should be moving the status bar as it loads modules, otherwise there is a *very* long pause between the system first booting, and the first status update. The simplest way would be to add a "if [ -e /proc/splash ] && blah" line in the module loading routine. Perhaps one per each "set" of modules (scsi, usb, firewire).
We're on gensplash now, and the ability of splash-utils to run a script supercedes this by a long shot...
