I found by pressing Esc just as the EA logo fades it skips for me even with the updated version. I noticed like with a few games ie dawn of war,company of heroes that once you update the game to a new version you have to watch the intro movie but once you have sat through it once you can skip it. its the same way i found with spore, so if you have just updated the game when you load it up again hit Esc just before the EA logo fades and it should work fine.
I noticed this as well, though it's a little picky. It's not all too hard to get the timing right but if you're off with it and hit it too late or too early, at least for me, then it won't work at all. It was good to find out, but when I have time today I am going to try Neo787's solution.
Ok I found out a way:
go into ea.dat with your dat opener(google)
Go to boot.ih
EA_Setup.gif
-----------------------------------------
Now go to EA_S.ini in the .dat file
Change this:
EA_Setup=EA_Setup.gif
to
EA_Setup=Nothing
AND
NormalBoot=EA.EXE
Maybe I'm blind, but I'm not seeing an EA.dat file on my computer.