In Knoppix (and all the remasters I've seen), both ash and ash.static are present, and the kernel - currently vmlinuz-2.4.26 - is duplicated, once in the boot/isolinux directory and once in the /boot directory on the actual system. Could ash not be removed and a symlink to ash.static be added, and could the kernel be linked to the CD or loaded into RAM? Is there some reason this hasn't occurred?