There is an open question about whether e2fsprogs still needs to work around the clock setting at fsck time because of a change that has now been made to util-linux, but regardless, e2fsprogs 1.40.8 has been merged into hardy now so I believe this bug is fixed.
If anyone is still seeing this behavior with current hardy, please reopen the bug for further investigation.
There is an open question about whether e2fsprogs still needs to work around the clock setting at fsck time because of a change that has now been made to util-linux, but regardless, e2fsprogs 1.40.8 has been merged into hardy now so I believe this bug is fixed.
If anyone is still seeing this behavior with current hardy, please reopen the bug for further investigation.