The following commit is trouble:

* Tue Mar 18 2008 Casey Dahlin <cjdahlin> - 1:0.17.7-11
- Don't check /etc/inittab for default runlevel since it may no longer be
  present

We still ship a /etc/inittab, and this is what anaconda is writing out for now.
 What's happening is that after a text install, we have runlevel 3 in the
inittab and GRAPHICAL=yes in the /etc/sysconfig/init file.  upstart starts up in
runlevel 3 as indicated by /sbin/runlevel, but rhgb runs anyway.

The end result is that text mode firstboot starts up in the rhgb expanded
window.  That quickly dies and leaves us with a wonderful expanse of blue on the
screen and nothing else.