I don't know how we didn't get hit by this before.  The issue is that config have real values until after the UI has initialized and gotten running.  This caused problems because config is referenced in a number of places (ex: getColumnWidth() ) and was failing because it had 'columns' undefined.

IMHO we should rethink the init of the application and make the app hold while configuration is being read and the app is starting up.  (maybe display some waiting screen like "doing awesome work to make this awesome")