It is better that we play be the ATA rules and adapt for anomolies. Note that I did consider this list option for IBM drives, but it was shorter and more prudent to add a 5-liner to address this anomoly. The single case issue will never fly by Linus and we all know it. If the current code still fails you at the BIOS level then we should possible consider not using BIOS geometry for IDE-PCI adapters. We then begin to rely solely on the drive, but some of them are kooky kludges.
Suggestions are welcome but reality usually molds the final solution.