Any chance of providing a version of the current 2.6 kernel with the openafs kernel module compiled into it?

or is there some workaround for not being able to dynamically load a kernel module that I am missing?

No other way; Caker has to add the module to the kernel for you. Allowing Linode users to load modules is allowing them to execute code directly on the host system, which obviously is a non-starter.

Is your username from Prince Caspian or is that your real name?

That was my suspicion...I am trying to use AFS as a way of managing a local cache of files from my local server.

It is from Prince Caspian...well spotted.