Comment 3 for bug 701698

a) our kernel packages carry the ABI version in their packagename, in case of a dist upgrade between two releases there is no former initrd to upgrade

b) in the case of armel we often have users that only use a rootfs and later install a kernel they created with kernel-package, these users indeed have to run update-initramfs -c to create the initial initrd.

beyond that i dont really see a reason for different behavior between create and update regarding the bootloader, imho both commands should get me a bootable system with the new initrd, which wont happen in case of create currently, at least for bootloaders that need the initrd and kernel flashed into certain places.
currently update-initramfs -c in combination with flash-kernel leaves me either with the old initrd/kernel or if i'm unlucky (i.e. because i bootstrapped a rootfs manually) with no kernel at all for the bootloader i would assume the same is true for bootloaders like lilo or any other bootloader that needs special handling as well.