Bugzilla does not consider it a bug, and closed it.
No, that is not correct. It is a bug, in either your hardware or the linux kernel. Unfortunately, the SME server development team is unable to fix either problem.
Does anyone know what is it trying to do at this point in the boot?
It's loading the kernel modules which have been identified as matching your various hardware. At the point you show, it is loading "other" drivers (the network and audio drivers have already been loaded). Here's the code which is running (from /etc/rc.sysinit):
echo -n $" network"
# Sound
for module in `/sbin/modprobe -c | awk '/^alias[[:space:]]+snd-card-[[:digit:]]+[[:sp
ace:]]/ { print $3 }'` $audio; do
load_module $module
done
echo -n $" audio"
# Everything else (duck and cover)
for module in $other ; do
load_module $module
done
echo -n $" done"
success
echo
Judging by the comment there, trouble sometimes happens at that point.
Is there anyway to get around it?
Gavin gave you one suggestion in the bug tracker. Google might suggest some others to you.
Booting with the "noapic" command argument sometimes helps with buggy drivers. Disabling or removing unneeded hardware can also help.