> Would it hurt if we always put grubenv on ESP when running on EFI?
One argument against this is that ESPs can't be RAIDed; if you have a system with multiple disks in a redundant configuration, putting the grubenv on the ESP means you then have two grubenvs, and I think if you are booting from the fallback disk there are various subtle cases where you'll regress (e.g. the 'initrdfail' handling in 00_header).
If it were possible instead for grub to provide a variable corresponding to "the ESP I booted from", this would not be an issue.
> Would it hurt if we always put grubenv on ESP when running on EFI?
One argument against this is that ESPs can't be RAIDed; if you have a system with multiple disks in a redundant configuration, putting the grubenv on the ESP means you then have two grubenvs, and I think if you are booting from the fallback disk there are various subtle cases where you'll regress (e.g. the 'initrdfail' handling in 00_header).
If it were possible instead for grub to provide a variable corresponding to "the ESP I booted from", this would not be an issue.