The temporary manual workaround that I’ve been using for quite some time now… 
, is to add something like the following to the beginning of start.sh. And then move the rules back when everything has stabilized.
mv /opt/openhab2/conf/rules/*.rules /opt/openhab2/conf/rules/prestart
echo REMEMBER TO MOVE THE RULE FILES BACK!
Glad to see a PR for this… thank you!