Within 5 minutes of sending this out, I found the solution and promptly slapped my head several times. My apologies for wasting bandwidth, but while I'm at it, here's the solution (to help those in the future who fall into this snare):
You have to make sure your PerSetVar directive for the RealmDBI_SecretKeyFile variable comes before your "PerlModule Apache::AuthCookieDBI" directive in your configuration file. Otherwise, there will be no appropriate keys returned by dir_config(). -=Fozz -- Doran L. Barton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> - Chief Super Hero - Iodynamics LLC < http://www.iodynamics.com/ > - Linux solutions and dynamic websites "I sick and stay in bed with a clod." -- Memo sent inside Japanese company in London