postgres startup script, long delay when auth = password

if pg_hba.conf has local users "trust"ed, reboots are quick and painless.  there
are obvious security problems with this though.

in switching the auth to password for example, we end up with the startup script
hanging on reboot... not indefinately though.  When running the startup script
manually from the shell, it it non-responsive for about 45-60 seconds, then
issues the "pg_ctl: postmaster does not start" error.

vs2# ./010* start
pg_ctl: postmaster does not start
 pgsqlvs2#

however after finally regaining the prompt, we check and the postmaster did
indeed start and is running...

vs2# ./010* status
pg_ctl: postmaster is running (pid: 35157)
Command line was:
/usr/local/bin/postmaster
vs2#

this delay during the boot process causes all rc.d scripts in this directory
after the postgres script not to be started on bootup...  most annoying.

Here is the relavent line in the startup script (basic from FreeBSD 4.3 port)

case $1 in
start)
    [ -d /usr/local/lib ] && /sbin/ldconfig -m /usr/local/lib
    [ -x ${PGBIN}/pg_ctl ] && {
        su -l pgsql -c \
            '[ -d ${PGDATA} ] && exec /usr/local/bin/pg_ctl start -s -w -l ~pgs
        echo -n ' pgsql'
    }
    ;;

could just remove the -w tag and presumably this would eliminate the 60 second
wait...  but then we wouldn't actually be verifying that the startup was
successful either.

Is it actually taking that long for the database to start? or is pg_ctl not
picking up on whatever indicator it uses to determine that the database has
indeed started?

Appreciate the input.

Dave