The common situation given has a convenient workaround, but IIRC this limitation also effects the kernel's own cmdline. Most folks aren't going to running against it limit in that context: built-in module options can usually be moved into the kernel's compile-time configuration, and loadable modules can have options offloaded into /etc/modprobe.d, but there exist contrived situations that challenge these solutions. ZFS for instance is (IIRC) always compiled as a loadable module, so if you wanted an initramfs-on-zfs for some reason (again, contrived) then you may need to provide it options before /etc/modprobe.d is mounted; almost /definitly/ not too many options, but you'd better hope so! Perhap mildly less contrived situations may be dreamt of, but in practice, modules involved in filesystem and other potentially boot-timey-things are designed with this limitation in mind and avoid (or simply never consider) the need for excessive cmdline options. I doubt one would ever need enough modules to hit the limit with, say, 3 options, of 20 chars each, per module, all on the cmdline.