OK. When in boot console the file wasn't changed.

Now booting Maemo normally I don't get the welcome screen (yes!), BUT date and time are reset.

More specifically, I go to the date and time settings and the 24-hour clock is still checked (good), no update automatically (good), time zone is correct (good).

Only date and time are messed up (Jan 1 2009, 01:00 GMT+1)

I don't know where to look, but something is messing up the date/time. However given that at least my zone settings are being kept, I might just activate the "update automatically" (I've never wanted to use that, it seems to randomly mess-up calendar events and alarms, just like in Symbian).