Comment # 1 on bug 918028 from Torsten Duwe

Do I get this right: you want the grub shell to be built with
readline support (again)?

It was never meant to be used interactively in openSUSE,
it was always to "do what I say, install this loader over there".
The instructions stored in /etc/grub.conf.

How are you using the grub shell?
Or do you mean the grub loader proper?