On a side note, I uploaded a new version of pcmcia-cs two days ago which should hopefully set PCIC to i82365 on your hardware. It should at least have made it into the sid_di daily images by now.
I tried the image from http://cdimage.debian.org/pub/cdimage-testing/sid_d-i/i386/20040708/. It looks like the card identification and configuration is working fine now for the 2.4 kernel. I wasn't able to test it under the 2.6 kernel because the problem that prompted this installation report in the first place is still occurring (installation hangs while loading the 'ide-cd' module).
Thank you for your help. - Robin