I went ahead and installed 'gainroot' on the Nokia, and used vi to edit the following startup file:

/etc/osso-af-init/real-af-base-apps

At the end of the file, I added a line to run the application:

/usr/bin/application-name

This seems to work great in general, but I'm observing an odd behavior that doesn't make much sense to me - but maybe someone else can explain and/or offer another solution.

If I'm at the Nokia's desktop, plug the unit into the charger, and hit the power button to turn the Nokia off, a black screen comes up with the word 'Charging' with an animated battery icon. BUT, after a few seconds, the application I am trying to auto-start pops up onto the screen, but is unresponsive (the touch screen does not work).

Anyone have any idea why this is happening?

Thanks!!

When plugged into the charger, it boots up into a different run-level to manage the charging and display the animation.

This explains why your app is starting. The reason it's unresponsive is that other services and daemons - like various bits of Hildon - aren't started and so your app is basically stuck.

Suffice to say, sticking it at the end of /etc/osso-af-init/real-af-base-apps doesn't seem to be the right place :-)

Apparently!

Any suggestions? I was hoping to get the procedure down to a single command, rather than having to edit the file manually using vi....

not sure if this would work but try adding
echo 0 > /sys/bus/spi/devices/spi1.0/disable_ts

before the application is run :/