Why might more memory be wired in safe mode than in normal mode? Maybe more noticeable in Lion and Mountain Lion, than in Snow Leopard and earlier versions of the operating system: 


in safe mode, an unexpectedly large amount of wired memory. 


Question

Why might more memory be wired in safe mode?

Example

Screenshots of Mountain Lion in safe and normal modes on a MacBookPro5,2 with 8 GB memory: 


with a safe boot, more than 5 GB is wired after login
with a normal boot, less than 2 GB.


Links

Mac OS X: What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode? 

What is wired memory?

Mac virtual memory: how to make OS X create swap (page) files as freely with a normal boot as it does with a safe boot (swapfile1 etc)

XNU questions in Stack Overflow
SafeBoot disables various kernel extensions including the GPU. The extra memory is likely being used for the display where it would normally be allocated to share with integrated graphics or be handled by a discreet graphics card.