The utilities on the rescue CD (mount, fdisk, etc.) are not the standard GNU tools, and do not behave as expected. In particular, it seems that few utils work properly until I create /dev nodes by hand (mount claims to do this automatically, but it doesn't support volume labels, and fdisk is pretty useless with an empty /dev.) Certainly, anaconda could easily create the needed block devices using info from /proc/partitions. I think the intended effect of the faked /dev could be better achieved by a devfs-enabled kernel for the rescue disk. I don't really see the logic behind the custom versions of mount, etc., and it seems that those tools aren't as functional or robust as the regular utilities. Also, there doesn't appear to be a text editor on the rescue disk. vim or pico wouldn't take up that much room.
pico should be available - please check. We are rethinking the rescue disk, I agree having the real GNU tools would be much more useful.
My mistake, pico does appear to be on the rescue disk. I think the SuSE 6.x rescue disk is something to have a look at to get an idea of what I expect from a rescue system.
Brent I have some ideas on this - come check with me as you implement this.