We already include the USB host controller modules in the initrd, for the cases of USB mice and keyboard. If we always included usb-storage, than rebooting would Just Work when you move a drive from being internal to an external enclosure - it wouldn't require a remade initrd. (Yes, this leaves firewire out for now.)
With a "USB" stick inserted in a "USB" port of my "PR440FX" mainboard and running kernel "2.6.21-1.3228.fc7", I obtain: "libusual: modprobe for usb-storage succeeded, but module is not present" in the "dmesg" log file, and there is actually no trace of the "USB" device in it. Only after loading "usb-storage.ko" -manually-, I succeed in having the "USB" stick appear in "dmesg" and being able to mount it by hand [yes, it's not mounted by "hal" (?) but this requires a different bug report, I suppose]. I suppose this problem would disappear if "usb-storage.ko" were included in the "initrd" file.
Adding FutureFeature keyword to RFE's.
What is your take on this Peter?
If we always want this included, we should be building it in to the kernel.