Switching to mod_rewrite does not work and breaks my streber installation / #5574

I tried to enable mod_rewrite for my streber installation (0.08)
on a virtualhost under apache 2.
I followed above steps, and streber-links are build correctly
as streber.foo.net/14 for example, but clicking the link
results in a 404 error.

My virtualhost .conf looks like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>

        ServerName   streber.foo.net
        DocumentRoot /var/www/streber.foo.net
        ErrorLog     /var/www/streber.foo.net/error.log
        CustomLog    /var/www/streber.foo.net/access.log combined

        <Directory /var/www/streber.foo.net>

            AllowOverride All
            DirectoryIndex index.php
            Options +ExecCGI -Indexes

            Order allow,deny
            Allow from all

        </Directory>

</VirtualHost>

As i tried to switch off mod_rewrite again by commenting out confChange('USE_MOD_REWRITE', true);
clicking _any_ link will result in logging out the current user with the message:
'Cookie is no longer valid for this computer.'
Logging in again works, but only for 1 view. Following any link will lead again to
the login mask with the same message. Another side effect is that images (and thumbnails)
are not displayed any more.

Anybody got an idea what i have missed or what i can do to either get SEF urls to work
or get my streber working again with plain old ugly urls.

Any help is very appreciated.