This may have been suggested before (I haven't searched the archives
for it), but since the issue has been raised again, what about this:
show the splash screen the first time the user invokes Emacs (even
with a file name) and ask whether to show it on the next invocation.
I won't reject this, but I am not sure if it is really more
convenient. To have to answer the question may be more inconvenient
than to be shown the splash screen. People will say "turn it off"
because they don't want to be asked the question, not because of the
splash screen itself.