In the absence of that, in your case, certainly the root-owned placeholder is a good idea - it seems nicer than disabling on-boot startup altogether if you can avoid that.
I'm pretty well convinced at this point that a start on boot init script is inappropriate when working with NFS attached storage. We really do need to be sure the mount is OK before starting the database. And we have the watchdogs in place, and people on call at all times, specifically to deal with "service down" events.
And while we could always modify the init script to rip out the "helpful" initdb part, I think the under-the-mount safety file is a must, unless of course someone thinks of an alternate scenario where it will do more harm than good ;-).
Joe
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