Just keeping it short for now, my issue is that my wireless interface (bcm4311) doesn't come online (aka, no devices are added to /sys/... or to /proc/net/dev) whenever I start linux with the hardware switch OFF. There are no problems when I start it with the switch ON. I've tried lots of things, but to no avail.
I just found out that upon enabling the wifi hardware switch just before booting linux (at the LILO prompt) is as bad as booting with the switch OFF. So, for things to work, the wifi hardware switch must be ON from the very boot of the laptop, eg, enabling it after booting linux, then restart while keeping the switch ON.
Some output from dmesg and rfkill here: http://pastebin.com/8Phex70V

Many thanks in anticipation.

You may need to read this next line a few times

When you start with something switched off, it usually is switched off.

Right, but I wanted full wifi functionality upon enabling the adapter. The good news is that I somewhat tracked down the concept and managed to solve this issue by building an udev rule that rescans the pci bus.