Clean install of 24.10.0 results in "cannot import ‘boot-pool’ : no such pool available"

Essentially, yes. There are phantom disc labels from a previous install somewhere on the drive that TrueNAS is interpreting as an exported boot environment.

Drives that have been formatted with previous TrueNAS versions can show exported pools in the TrueNAS UI (NAS-131890). This is typically due to obsolete filesystem labels in the boot drives still being detected by TrueNAS. The underlying bug is fixed in 24.10.0-RC.2 and newer, but these labels can remain on boot drives used with previous TrueNAS releases. Removing these labels from the boot drives requires backing up your TrueNAS configuration, reinstalling 24.10.0 fresh on the boot drives, then restoring the TrueNAS configuration.