Certainly seems to be exactly the same symptoms. The plugging in of the monitor after booting sounds like a great trouble shooting technique. Well done!
Another is to revert to a 15khz capable Commodore monitor and standard Amiga video cable. Which I think we all assumed orb85750 was already doing. If not, and it is the same problem as you had, then it's a good reminder to always give an overview of your system and it's connectivity before relating the problem. Removes a lot of educated guessing. Even electronics professionals like Castellan can't read people's minds from a post. Face to face maybe.
I wonder if Orb85750 ever solved his problem....
My old 15kHz CRTs died years ago unfortunately. My nice new Dell U2410 does support 15kHz though. It even handles NTSC interlace correctly, but not PAL interlace (fields are spatially swapped).