That's feasible, Carl.
It's the inaugural run of the application, and the application.cfc's methods are only automatically called AFTER the file's pseudo-constructor runs. And even though 1 line tells CF to make a per-application mapping to a valid path, CF won't internally initialize that mapping until the application has been created (ie, we've entered the onApplicationStart() method). As a logical flow, this makes sense; but as a procedural, it does not. Still, I think you might be on to something.
During the first run, this-scoped variables can speak to one another BUT I did abort processing before CF goto consider the application.cfc "executed"; I have seen the behavior of CF change when you abort out at certain points.