Using profile_user_categories() breaks major core upgrade

Comes from #1157526: Error on upgrade 6x to 7x: PDOException: SQLSTATE[42S02]: Base table or view not found: 1146 Table 'hoslot5_ghhoa.profile_field' comment: http://drupal.org/node/1157526#comment-6705004

The module strongarm have a ctools dependent update hook. The ctools have a content type plugin based on profile module, so ctools can't be disabled during the update process by default. The ctools import own plugins during some registry rebuild, and it uses profile_user_categories() for checking.

In /plugins/content_types/user_context/profile_fields.inc there are:

if (module_exists('profile') && !is_null(profile_user_categories())) {
  /**
   * Plugins are described by creating a $plugin array which will be used
   * by the system that includes this file.
   */
  $plugin = array(
    'single' => TRUE,
    'title' => t('Profile category'),
    'icon' => 'icon_user.png',
    'description' => t('Contents of a single profile category.'),
    'required context' => new ctools_context_required(t('User'), 'user'),
    'category' => t('User'),
    'defaults' => array('category' => '', 'empty' => ''),
    'hook theme' => 'ctools_profile_fields_content_type_theme',
  );
}

Is there any option to change the !is_null(profile_user_categories() condition, which doesn't use the not yet updated profile_field table?