In the meantime, the difference between the two initramfs images lsinitramfs revealed is conf/conf.d/zz-resume-auto. This is generated by mkinitramfs in case there is a RESUME variable set, which is expected to be a path or UUID to a swap partition, for suspend-to-disk functionality.
Searching for it in DuckDuckGo gives kernel panic reports as 3 of 5 first results, though mostly due to a syntax error in this script, which I would expect to be fixed, or non-existing swap partition UUID. On the host (outside the initramfs), there is no other initramfs-tools config than the default, which does not define RESUME, and there is (has never been) a swap partition in our or Armbian images, but at best a swap file on the root filesystem. So I wonder why this script is generated. Since I could not find any reason in initramfs or kernel maintainer/postinst scripts or configs, I guess the kernel itself somehow must ask/trigger initramfs-tools to generate it. It however can not contain anything correct, but either nothing or false content, as there is no swap partition. Sadly the user who helped investigating initially set up the system freshly now, hence cannot further help, checking the content of this script and whether it can be prevented via RESUME=none in initramfs-tools config. I can further investigate myself from January 17th on.
However, while this script, and the kernel panic in search results seem very suspicious, it might be the wrong track. But so far it is the only trace I was able to find 😉.