Wifi doesn't seem to wake up and be recognized after software reboot

[Jeffrey J. Kosowsky]

I am using an Ionics Plugcomputer Plus with a built-in "Marvell WLAN
802.11 adapter". The system is running:
   Linux debian 2.6.31.8 #1 PREEMPT Wed Apr 21 11:23:23 PHT 2010 armv5tel GNU/Linux

When I boot up from a hardware reset, the wireless interface comes up
and the syslog shows:
	debian kernel: libertas_sdio: Libertas SDIO driver
	debian kernel: libertas_sdio: Copyright Pierre Ossman
	debian kernel: libertas_sdio mmc0:0001:1: firmware: requesting sd8688_helper.bin
	debian kernel: libertas_sdio mmc0:0001:1: firmware: requesting sd8688.bin
	debian kernel: libertas: 00:21:19:ea:6c:6c, fw 10.38.3p49, cap 0x00000303
	debian kernel: libertas: eth1: Marvell WLAN 802.11 adapter
	debian kernel: udev: renamed network interface eth1 to eth2
	debian kernel: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth2: link is not ready
	debian kernel: Bluetooth: vendor=0x2df, device=0x9105, class=255, fn=2
	debian kernel: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth2: link becomes ready

The interface then as expected appears properly in 'ifconfig' and
the hardware shows up in:
	/sys/devices/platform/mvsdio/mmc_host/mmc0/mmc0\:0001/mmc0\:0001\:

When I do a software shutdown (say using 'shutdown -r now'), the
wireless interface *fails* to be detected. The syslog only shows the
first two lines:
   debian kernel: libertas_sdio: Libertas SDIO driver
   debian kernel: libertas_sdio: Copyright Pierre Ossman
Nothing shows up in 'ifconfig -a' and the hardware is not found in
/sys/devices/platform/msvidio...

It seems as if software shutdown puts the wifi device to sleep but
that loading the modules doesn't wake them up unless you do a hardware
reset or power-up.

Has anybody else experienced this issue?
Any idea what might be wrong?

Thanks!
-------------------------------------------------------
Note: I load the modules and configure the wireless as follows (as
called from rc.local):

# The firmware files are -> sd8688.bin & sd8688_helper.bin
# The firmware files need to be present in /lib/firmware
rmmod libertas_sdio libertas
cp /root/mvfw/wlan/sd8688* /lib/firmware/

insmod /root/mvdrivers/libertas.ko
insmod /root/mvdrivers/libertas_sdio.ko

touch /etc/wlanclient.mode
# The newly created interface will be eth(n)

wpa_supplicant -i eth2 -c /root/wpa_supplicant.conf -B
ifconfig eth2 192.168.1.101 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
route add -net 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 eth2
route add default gw 192.168.1.1 eth2
iwconfig eth2 essid mywifirouter