Better sound control in GDM

With the user switching and multi user environment. Small issues that could be easily resolved show themselves in GDM. Most notibly, is the sound when gdm starts in ubuntu.
If the sound is muted by one person it is muted in gdm. That is ok, but when you are playing a moving in Totem, you need the volume very high with the volume of totem controled with in it's player. When the computer is then booted again and the volumes haven't been adjusted your hit with very loud bongo drums! ot good when you see a movie at night and go to the quite office meeting in the morning.
I see a few solutions.
Easiest to implement:
Make sure that the volume is not over a certain level, or be able to set a maximum level in the gdm theme control area.
Dumb way to implement it:
Remove all booting sounds, there by eliminating the issue. (That's like owning a store and saying, "If we ignore them long enough, maybe they will leave." :D
Best way to implement it:
Have a settable volume level.
Have the ability to his a shortcut key to mute on boot. For example, hold shift while logging in to not have a boot sound at log in. Or turning on Numlock or capslock and have gdm check if it was turned on or not.