We had problems using the the GA ISO images of OpenSuse 12.1 for autoinstallation.
Because of that we mirrored from gwdg the update and using this update during installation. The installation resource is named in the add_on_products section.
The kernel version we use is: 3.1.9-1.4-desktop
With this approach we had so far no further problems but i must mention that we use the old sysvinit-init for the services.
Example of the autoinst.xml
<profile xmlns="http://www.suse.com/1.0/yast2ns" xmlns:config="http://www.suse.com/1.0/configns">
<add-on>