Ok, here's what I ended up doing. Don't know if all steps are
necessary:

BIOS stuff

1) Flashed the BIOS of my EPIA ME6000 to version 1.13
2) Changed display setting in BIOS to 'LCD' to get a readable display
3) Enabled 'boot from USB-HDD' option in BIOS

From CD-booted KNOPPIX

4) Ran mkfs.vfat directly on /dev/sda (no partition table)
5) Copied KNOPPIX CD contents to /dev/sda
6) Moved boot/isolinux/* to top level of /dev/sda
7) Renamed isolinux.[cfg|bin] to syslinux.[cfg|bin]

Edited linuxrc files (still in CD-booted KNOPPIX)

8) Copied minirt24.gz to /tmp
9) cd /tmp && mkdir 24 && gunzip minirt24.gz
10) mount -o loop minirt24 24
11) edited 24/linuxrc
a) add a 4 second delay after modules are loaded
b) force FOUND_KNOPPIX to be /dev/sda and mount that to /cdrom
12) unmount 24 && gzip minirt24.gz
13) Copy modified minirt24.gz back to the USB drive
14) Repeat the whole thing with minirt26.gz

Get USB key ready to boot (still in CD-booted KNOPPIX)

15) Download syslinux-2.11.tar.gz
16) Unmount /dev/sda
17) Untar and run syslinux on /dev/sda

Boot from USB Key

18) Boot from USB key. (I use the USB2 cheatcode for speed).

And that is about it. I can easily fit an entire KNOPPIX on the 1GB PQI
iStick, which is great. More fiddling than I hoped for, but the end
result is a no moving parts computer. I may post the exact linuxrc patch and
more detailed instructions somewhere on the web in the future, unless I am
too lazy.