This is pretty clearly a kernel bug. xserver-xorg-video-intel 2.9.1-1ubuntu3 through 1ubuntu10 and newer are compiled without UMS support so it's expected to fallback to vesa if you boot with nomodeset and is not a bug. The LVDS not getting detected properly under KMS is the main issue here as shown in the dmesg in comment #13.
This is pretty clearly a kernel bug. xserver- xorg-video- intel 2.9.1-1ubuntu3 through 1ubuntu10 and newer are compiled without UMS support so it's expected to fallback to vesa if you boot with nomodeset and is not a bug. The LVDS not getting detected properly under KMS is the main issue here as shown in the dmesg in comment #13.