OK, so I took a look at the GNOME "Disks" utility, which I was finally able to get to run without crashing, and as far as I can tell, it doesn't resolve my main complaint with the new F17 behavior.

Yes, I can use the Disks utility to configure removable devices, e.g., my DVD drive, to mount on startup. But then it isn't going to mount in /run/media/$USER, because there's no user logged in yet.

My concern, which I've explained repeatedly and I believe is quite legitimate despite all of the flak I've taken for it here, is that the behavior of a removable device that is already inserted when I log in should be exactly the same as the behavior of a removable device that I insert after logging in. As far as I can tell the Disks utility can't achieve that. If I'm wrong, please explain to me exactly how I should configure, e.g., my DVD drive in the Disks utility so that if there's a DVD in the drive when I log in, it will be mounted under /run/media/$USER automatically.

(And, while you're at it, explain to me why this shouldn't be the default behavior, which I've yet to see anyone here explain, as far as I recall.)

  jik