what i said was that uboot is principaly able to read ext2. you don't need no extra vfat partition with that. it only has a tiny bug(two lines only the returncode of the read).
has it for at least four years and i remember something that it won't get fixed until somthing else is fixed(that something else is to be verifyed - if it is dangerous or unimportant or doesn't exist anymore or ...)

[ and i said i quickfixed the two lines without further examining and works fine for me. it might be worth it]