First of all, just for the record - 'fbset -i' reports the following for the
fb1280x1024 bootoption (which does nothing else than using vga=794) inside
VMware as an example:

mode "1280x1024-77"
    # D: 131.096 MHz, H: 80.328 kHz, V: 76.649 Hz
    geometry 1280 1024 1280 1024 16
    timings 7628 160 32 16 4 160 4
    rgba 5/11,6/5,5/0,0/0
endmode

Frame buffer device information:
    Name        : VESA VGA
    Address     : 0xf0000000
    Size        : 5242880
    Type        : PACKED PIXELS
    Visual      : TRUECOLOR
    XPanStep    : 0
    YPanStep    : 0
    YWrapStep   : 0
    LineLength  : 2560
    Accelerator : No

Mark, you are talking about the 76.649 Hz? I assume the options mentioned in
http://lxr.linux.no/source/Documentation/fb/vesafb.txt won't help you, right?

"The wish item is to alter fb1280x1024 to match standard timing" - I don't think
we have a chance to change that. We just use existing infrastructure and the
usual way of using that (vga=794). Mark, are you getting the same values as in
above output?