Crazy idea: shut off all the daemons that need network (from normal init processing) and then only spawn them when appropriate from NetworkManager.
FYI, I just started a thread on this in comp.protocols.time.ntp, gateway'd to the ntp-questions mailing list:
<http://lists.ntp.isc.org/pipermail/questions/2005-February/thread.html>
Look for the thread "ntpd, boot time, and hot plugging".
