Empty select fields (e.g. State, Country...) do not display properly when part of a profile within an online contribution or event registration confirmation page

Profile fields and values in a Confirmation and Thankyou page are rendered by templates/CRM/UF/Form/Block.tpl. The mechanism is to simply freeze the quickform field. However, for <select> fields (like state or country) - if the field isn't required and is not filled in - we wind up showing ' - select - ' as the field value. This is confusing and unprofessional looking.