Kerneld is started from /etc/rc.boot and from a script in /etc/rc.d/init.d. While rc.boot checks the kernel version (since 2.1.x and higher kernels don't need kerneld) the script does not. This doesn't really cause any problems at all, but I thought I'd mention it so it doesn't persist into RH 6.0. Removing the script (and, of course, the symlinks pointing to it) eliminates this problem completely.
Thank you for your suggestion. It has been noted and will be considered for future releases of Red Hat.