i didn't say it messes with the kernel. i said it hooks into preinit and turns the maemo bootprocess upside down. nice, great idea if you have no bootloader doing this. but not realy sane.

whats that fussing with the kernel thing about?
if you flash a kernel in the nand you fuss around with the kernel. you have to replace it.
with uboot on the other hand you can leave the original(working) kernel in place - no need to deinstall . so its quite the other way round. uboot stops the messing arround with the kernel.

i think you are still fixiated to the idea that the kernel has to be in the nand. no it has not! it can be in any place.

EDIT: if you say chainloading one bootloader from another is also not the nicest approach, i agree with you. nolo should be replaced: unfortunately i don't see that comming(to much stuff hidden in nolo). so with that chainloading is the 2nd best solution.
EDIT2: not kexecing to a different kernel if you use the preinit is imo a problem for the maemo kernel is made to work with all the closed stuff in maemo. if you don't have it, it's incomplete... and so ... better leave it as it is and if you want something different so do start something different and not begin with one thing and turn half ways round to do something else.