reflashed and installed deblet bootmenu, same issue.
chrooted and uninstalled ubuntu-omap-fb-splash ubuntu-rescue-menu, same issue but without the boot splash, i just see the "Incompatible bootmenu used" message.
untarred in the root partition Ubuntu-9.04-N8x0-v2.1.tar.gz and the system just hangs after the message "pivot root and starting /sbin/init..."
let me know if you want me to do some more tests.