Inconsistent NIC behavior

[Barney Cordoba]

One particular annoyance with Freebsd is that different NICs have different dormant behavior.

For example em and igb both will show the link being active or not on boot whether the interface
has been UPed or not, while ixgbe and bce do not. 

I think it's a worthy goal to have NICs work the same in this manner. It's very valuable to know that
a nic is connected without having to UP it. And an annoyance when  you fire up a new box with a
new nic that shows No Carrier when the link light is on. 

It's really too much of a project for one person to have enough knowledge of multiple drivers to make the 
changes, so it would be best if the maintainers would do it.

BC