Yes the startup window is an ugly thing, you might use a hex editor / debugger
to find a way do away with it, but that is against the license agreement
(reverse engineering). But I cant find in the license agreement where the
startup window is required to be shown in extra or commercial editions. And
since Conitec has stated they dont mind plugins emulating Pro features, this
would be a nice feature. Even if all it did was mask it with a black screen.
Heck I would buy a cheap dll that did only that!

I have even thought about creating a starter program from another app that
starts the game, and presents a full screen image that has the focus as long as
the startup window handle exists, then exits as the game window takes focus.