I think that kernel on disk 0 or 1 is a slightly different kernel compiled to load from multiple diskettes. Somewhere is the real kernel, probably packed, it is unpacked with the unpack command.
Win32's only worked up to version 1.25 (and some letter). MS and IBM were playing a game where MS would break them and IBM would fix them. With 1.30, MS forced some DLLs to load above 1GB where OS/2 couldn't access them. It is possible to mix and match 1.25 and 1.30 DLLs to get a mostly working Win32s environment.