My guess from a look at the log file is that the problem here are the broken DBus-bindings for OS 2006. Did you install python for OS 2006 or for OS 2007?

The broken bindings try to resolve component names over the internet, which is absolutely brain-dead. If the device is offline, this makes the applications hang for a long time.
Canola, if I understand correctly, thinks there has been some problem loading the plugins (because nothing happened for so long) and cancel loading them. That's why you don't have icons.

As a workaround I suggest to connect the device to the internet. Then the DBus name resolution may finish earlier.

As a more complicated workaround, the Canola team could also inject some code into the module urllib2 at runtime that raises an exception before it comes to name resolution. Then the stupid DBus name resolution over internet is aborted immediately and the application continues. This would break urllib2 for the application, however, and I don't know if Canola is using this module.
This is how I got MediaBox running fine on OS 2006.