I experimented quite a bit during the last two days, so the results are
now ready to report. To summarize my efforts, I managed to get X11 up
and running, but I am still not sure where the issue originated.

To Robert Hooker:
I did:
echo FRAMEBUFFER=y | sudo tee /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/splash
and updated initramfs but that didn't help.

First of all, right now I am running X11 without a file /etc/X11/xorg.conf:
na...@serre:~$ ls /etc/X11/xorg.conf
ls: cannot access /etc/X11/xorg.conf: No such file or directory
It seems strange to me. Did the config file location change recently?

Originally, I was running xdm as a login manager. Switching to gdm
helped me fix the issue. In general, it seems gdm is "smarter", so it
caught the fact X11 failed to start. It shows an emergency dialog which
helped me recover the system. By recover, it seems all it did was remove
my file xorg.conf. After rebooting I was fine.

Here are some conclusions I reached.
1. Apparently 'dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg' does not change the file 
xorg.conf. (I ran this command multiple times before, and it did not help. I 
only realised it did not change the configuration file later).
2. Gdm is much starter than xdm in terms of failstart. It seems to me that any 
emergency utility should be separate from gdm, so it can be reused with other 
login managers (e.g. xdm).
3. There has been a regression in xdm/X11 or something about their 
compatibility. (Switching back to xdm brings my system back to the useless 
state. Surprisingly, startx yields those errors I listed above. I imagines 
startx should do its job regardless of the login manager.)

The items I listed above could either be gaps in my understanding, or
real issues with X11, and its friends. Could someone test a few of these
and let me know? I would be happy to provide further details or run more
tests.

-- 
Xserver does not start due to drm problem
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/565643
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