When I sent e-mail to the folks at Planet Computers I was advised "Console access will likely not be available to the general public."
This will be disappointing if so. Perhaps most people don't need it, but for some this is valuable to have. I'm under the impression disabling the console UART generally involves cutting traces on release PCBs, and no removal of components. If so, no cost savings, yet you need to get a special version for console access.
Once you've got a working kernel configuration debugging is easy since panics occur after the point where you've got adb or other logging. Before then console access is near-magical. Look at the Raspberry PI Foundation for how much value it has. Learning about early startup has value.
Meanwhile if one is wacky enough to ponder the idea of installing Xen, console access for everyone wouldn't hurt.
